


not your homeland anymore

by scribbleb_red



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, And these dumbass murderbabies need some love in all the darkness, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Because healing is my favourite trope, But Neil didn't come home after Baltimore, Crime, Crimes & Criminals, Dark, Dubious Consent Due To Sex Work, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, I always give you a happy ending, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Netflix would describe it as, PSA: Listen to Folklore, References to Drugs, Romance, Sex Work, Smut, Witness Protection, if this was a K Drama, quirky, romantic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:27:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25548949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribbleb_red/pseuds/scribbleb_red
Summary: "Andrew was driving back to his apartment, taking one of the less salubrious routes simply because he could. Down a backstreet full of cramped bars and neon lights, past a string of shuttered shops and a 24/7 laundromat – it was dangerous down this way, well-known for the number of men who’d been murdered after working its corners. Young men. Beautiful men. Junkie men. Men who could be hired by the half-hour for a couple twenties. When they turned up dead, the police called it an overdose and ignored the bruises and broken teeth."Seven years have past since the Bearcats game where Neil Josten disappeared. Seven years since Andrew Minyard last saw him. Seven years since the last candle was blown out and Andrew realised he was never meant to have nice things. And then one cold, bitter night in New York changes everything.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 198
Kudos: 366





	1. see you standing, honey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Winter in New York was a bitter thing – too cold for comfort, too harsh for hope – but that was why Andrew kept coming back.
> 
> Kevin and Thea said it was fine around Christmas and New Year, but Andrew didn’t visit then. He chose February when the city was shuttered by frigid winds and when the hurly-burley of the holidays were over. He rolled down the window and the ice blew through him, making him remember, for just a moment, what it was like before life blew the candles out."

_I_

_see you standing, honey_

_***_

Winter in New York was a bitter thing – too cold for comfort, too harsh for hope – but that was why Andrew kept coming back.

In the seven years since graduating Palmetto, this city was the one that he felt he deserved. It was huge, relentless, unforgiving; a place where he could be anonymous despite his notoriety, where it was so loud that he could barely think if he walked down the right street. And winter just made everything worse – colder, crueller, darker.

Kevin and Thea said it was fine around Christmas and New Year, but Andrew didn’t visit then. He chose February when the city was shuttered by frigid winds and when the hurly-burley of the holidays were over. He rolled down the window and the ice blew through him, making him remember, for just a moment, what it was like before life blew the candles out.

He was driving back to his apartment, taking one of the less salubrious routes simply because he could. Down a backstreet full of cramped bars and neon lights, past a string of shuttered shops and a 24/7 laundromat – it was dangerous down this way, well-known for the number of men who’d been murdered after working its corners. Young men. Beautiful men. Junkie men. Men who could be hired by the half hour for a couple twenties. When they turned up dead, the police called it an overdose and ignored the bruises and broken teeth.

Still, it wasn’t like Andrew was the one at risk in his Maserati.

Anyway, he wasn’t going to pick up one of the sex workers tonight. He never picked anyone up. Tempting as it was (some of them were pretty enough), he couldn’t square consent with paying for sex.

No, like every other night he came this way, he just wanted to look.

Look and appreciate and imagine it – the negotiation, the agreement, the slide of money and then of hands over wrists. Maybe he’d get them to blow him in the front seat. Maybe he’d pull up in an alley, watch their knees scuff against the concrete, backs pushing back against brick. He could almost taste it: the dirty promise of release.

He idled on the corner, lit a cigarette and inhaled before looking up. There were several young men tonight, grouped together, all young and slender and dressed in sheer shirts and tight trousers, breaths like smoke in the cold.

Andrew exhaled and crept the car forwards, drinking them in. They watched him watching them, angling their bodies to tease and taunt as he crawled by. They didn’t call out, but metamorphoses, shifting into a series of provocative poses, all long legs and jutting hips and heavy eyes. He liked the feeling that rushed through him – that he was the predator. It was almost enough to curb the sharp twist of shame. He drank them in, lifted his cigarette and imagined breathing in the smell of them. These were men for sale and it was tempting. _Oh so fucking tempting._

Because Andrew had hook ups from time to time, but they were perfunctory and already bordering on clandestine. He set the terms with those men. He kicked them out after. It wasn’t that different to what he imagined when he trawled this street. Only here he could pick up someone who already knew the rules: that it was nothing and would always be nothing. That the hollow in his chest wasn’t theirs to fill and never would be. That he had a need to be serviced and nothing more.

But he also knew it wouldn’t work. Not for him. It crossed a thousand lines, broke a dozen promises.

His eyes flicked further up the street to where a lone man was stepping out from a silver Mercedes. A hot shiver danced through Andrew’s skin. That could be him driving away, him leaving a stranger behind on a street with the taste of his cum in their mouth.

From the street, he heard the rattle of someone going in and out of the laundromat and careless greetings thrown into the night. Andrew rolled up his window. He didn’t need headlines or any more reasons for Kevin to yell down the phone.

He was getting ready to drive away, when his attention flickered back to the man now walking towards him, clearly going to join the others on the corner. This one was smaller than the rest and lean as a clip point in his tight jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt. He tossed his head as the wind gusted, the lamplight catching in red curls and across sharp cheeks. Andrew dragged his eyes down, lingering on the narrow waist where he could just picture his hands squeezing. This man was beautiful in the same way as a knife – there was something so familiar about him. Eerily so.

And then the boy rolled his shoulders, squared them like he was ready for a fight.

And he turned just minutely enough that a neon 24/7 sign filled in his features, blooming in orange and yellow.

And Andrew froze.

Because he knew that face. Knew those shoulders. Knew that attitude.

Hated every inch of them.

The hate was like being set on fire – a dozen cigarettes stubbed out on naked skin, his stomach lit up by gasoline – a sensation at once intimately familiar and utterly alien.

 _How could he be here, now, tonight, after all these years? How could he be real?_

He closed his eyes for a second, caught his breath. _This had to be a hallucination_.

But when he opened them again, the man was still there: not a pipedream, not a ghost. Neil Abram Josten - Nathaniel Wesninski – stood less than two yards away from Andrew Minyard. And he was very much alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here we go. Are you ready for some more angst and fluff and more angst?
> 
> Thoughts, feels, hit me. I live for your opinions.
> 
> xx


	2. seen this film before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The man didn’t move, not immediately. He was sprawled on his belly, the muscles of his back still rippling from the come down. Andrew had left marks on his shoulders – two distinct bruises where his thumbs had dug a little too hard. The sight made Andrew’s stomach twist."

_II_

_seen this film before_

***

“That was amazing. Gods, you were…”

“Get out,” Andrew told the brunette draped across his sofa. He’d pulled out, binned the condom, lit a cigarette and now he wanted the man gone. His whiskey buzz was wearing off too fast for post-coital small talk. He wanted to be drunk again. 

But the man didn’t move, not immediately. He was sprawled on his belly, the muscles of his back still rippling from the comedown. Andrew had left marks on his shoulders – two distinct bruises where his thumbs had dug a little too hard. The sight made Andrew’s stomach twist.

“None of my friends are gonna believe this. You’re an Olympian,” he rambled on and on.

Andrew stubbed his cigarette out on the side table. “I said _leave_.”

“What? Are you kidding?” The man– Andrew didn’t even know his name, something like Greg or Gary or Richard or something equally dull – finally looked over his shoulder with eyebrows raised. His cheeks were still flushed. He was revoltingly handsome – traditionally so, with a cleft chin and square jaw. His eyes were a deep brown. Hair dark and curly. 

Andrew glared down at him, face empty of anything except contempt. “Do I look like I’m kidding? Get the fuck out.”

Graeme-Mike-Dick- _whatever_ pulled a face, huffed, started to say something but thought better of it. “Christ, fuck, ok, give me a couple minutes to get my shit.”

Andrew gave him one minute and slammed the door shut behind him, ignoring the muffled cursing and insults left in the silence. He grabbed a thin black dressing gown and poured several generous fingers of whiskey into a tumbler. He hated that fucking word. More than _please_ or _sorry_ or _stop_.

He hated _amazing._

He sneered into the glass, downed what he’d poured and refilled. This one he’d picked up at a bar near Houston Street, sucking him off in an alley before bringing him home. It was a new routine – one he went through every time he thought of revisiting that neon-lit alley where Neil Josten apparently worked.

Go out. Get drunk. Find a body. Find release. Sink back into the repetition of his life. Joyless and feeling nothing because _nothing mattered, not anymore_ , _not for a long, long time._

He told himself nothing was important. That if he never went back to that street, he could pretend like nothing had changed. In his head, Neil was in some far flung mid-west town with a cosy house and a dog and a job that left him just a little annoyed when it was Monday. Or maybe he was off galivanting around the world, finally being a tourist instead of a fugitive. In the first year, Andrew had come up with a thousand and one possibilities for where Neil Josten ended up, always telling himself that wherever he was he was ~~safe~~ no longer Andrew’s problem.

But the sick emptiness of his stomach never let him forget that this wasn’t peace, but cowardice; that there was a thin line between survival and avoidance, and he’d fallen down the wrong side years ago.

_Amazing. You were amazing._

And the problem was that the routine was no longer working. It didn’t matter who he brought home. Didn’t matter where he fucked them or how hard or how fast. He couldn’t dislodge the vision of orange lights blooming over freckled skin, the flare of red hair on a dark street, the eyes that were preternaturally blue in the rear-view mirror.

Those eyes had haunted him for seven years already, who was he to expect that he could banish them in boys and booze now? It might have rid him of Aaron and Nicky and Bee, but he’d never fully shaken the spectre of Neil Josten.

_You were amazing. Thank you, you were amazing._

Padding through his empty apartment, he threw open the balcony doors and let the frigid wind lance through him. It scoured his skin, hit his lungs and left him hissing, struggling to breathe. He never came out here. At eighteen stories high, the fall was too tempting and his promise to Kevin was definitely not strong enough to keep him from tipping himself headfirst over the railing anymore. _Had it ever been, really?_ Protecting Kevin. Following Kevin to pro-exy. Rising with him to Court. He hated it all: the game, the people, the past. 

He gulped down more whiskey, wished he’d brought the bottle and forced himself to look down at the pinpricks of headlights and street vendors. The traffic below was the hush of a river, pulsing to the rhythm of green for go and red for stop. Car horns intermittently broke through the quiet, Morse code for the city’s simmering anger. Survivors talked of the regret when they jumped; Andrew didn't think he'd care. 

_Thank you, you were amazing._

He clutched at the railing, closed his eyes, tried not to remember another rooftop and another endless drop and a true-blue gaze staring up at him through smoke from a disposed cigarette. 

But he did remember. He always remembered. The crush of bodies on the way out of the Binghamton match. The stink of sweat and tarmac, sharp from the rain they’d missed inside their plexiglass box. The drunken partiers on the stadium lawn.

He remembered how almost as soon as they started towards the bus, he had clocked the bristling fans and the mounting violence.

And he remembered how, when the first bottle struck Aaron, he’d turned to glare out at the crowd.

He remembered that moment with the high definition of trauma - recalling every single stupid, useless curse from Aaron’s stupid, useless mouth; and the way the light glanced off a stranger's watch as their arm launched empty cans at the Foxes; and the fierce rush in his ears as he grabbed his twin, pushing him out of harms way. He remembered that decision: to turn, to reach, to hold onto the wrong person. Because Andrew _turning_ and _choosing Aaron_ was the biggest mistake of his life. 

In that second, he’d lost sight of Neil. Neil who’d been just behind security. Neil who’d just thanked him for the game and looked at him like he was the answer to everything. Neil who’d spent the bus ride with his chin propped on his elbow, talking over the back seat so that he could tell Andrew about the cities he'd been through, the back alleys and tourist stops and sketchy city buses. Neil who’d said all year that he didn’t swing but quietly confessed that he swung just for Andrew, right before tugging him in for a kiss.

Neil – who said that he didn’t swing – but apparently now sold sex for money.

The wind howled, ice flaking off under his hands, pain reverberating through his fingers into his wrists. 

_He was meant to be safe_ , growled that little voice in his head, the one that was still angry, still hateful, still unforgivably alive. _They said – they promised – he’d be safe_.

“ _Fuck.”_ Andrew’s hand snarled in his hair. “Fuck, fucking, fuck.”

There was a feeling in his bones – a certainty that felt like the moment right before a car crash, flipping arse over tail and the world was suspended in time for those last few seconds, right before the fall, right before the pain.

He was going to have to go back, he knew that. Had known that since he threw the Maserati into gear and sped away with Neil's eyes wide and watching behind him.

Andrew had to find out what happened after the riot and the loss and the broken promises. 

Andrew had to face this ghost, play the film all the way to the end, or he’d never find peace.


	3. see you staring, honey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Andrew sat behind the wheel and listened, window crooked enough to let their voices in but not enough for them to see him. Over the last few days, he’d learnt more about this street and its hustlers than he had any right to know. He overheard their murmured fears - of him, of the killer, of themselves and their addictions."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings // References to drug use, sex work, and murder

_III :_

_see you staring, honey_

***

The Maserati curled into the street. Black and flashy and entirely impractical, it purred along the pavement and pulled over in the shadows beyond the laundromat – just as it had every night for the last week.

Dusk had been and gone, leaving the streets dark, the neon sharp. Snow fell between the shadows and the light, flashing pink and orange and yellow in endless rotation. It landed on crumpled cans and forgotten papers, soggy grey where careless feet had crushed them into pulp.

On the corner the boys huddled, wary of the car that kept coming back, wary of the man with his tiger’s voice growling out from the windows, wary because he watched them and never wanted them.

There were a couple others like this: creeps who came to stare from behind tinted windows. They were the ones the boys never wanted to go home with. The ones with proclivities beyond the normal and left them wrecked afterwards. Sometimes it was worth the money. Most of the time, not so much. For now, they stood and they watched the car that was watching them, waiting for the moment one of them would have to make a decision that wasn’t really theirs.

There were four of them out tonight, though Craig and Tolly were making themselves useful down a nearby alley and the backroom of the laundromat. They were expected back as much as any boy ever was.

“What d’you reckon?” That was Juice, straight out of Atlanta with skin smooth as mahogany until you got to his forearms – they were puckered by years sticking primo into his veins. He also couldn’t stop talking, couldn’t stop being loud and angry and taking up space. “Think that’s the guy? The Toothfairy Killer?”

“Don’t say that. Don’t talk about that shit out here,” replied the shivery, fair-haired Ellis. Ellis could have been anywhere between sixteen and forty but was really nineteen. His feet were sore. His back ached. His head was pounding like a metronome. His hands had the constant prick of pins and needles and a clump of his once bright blond hair had fallen out in the sink two mornings ago. He’d been complaining about it endlessly yesterday. Today he looked haggard and dead behind the eyes. 

“Lookit y’all have to have thought about who it is? Reckon you’ve fucked them?”

“Just stop it already, Juice.”

“Fucked by ‘em then?”

“Don’t you know it’s bad luck to talk like that.”

As if there was anything but bad luck out here and none of them had ever dreamed of being something other than boys in a line, waiting for a strange man to give them a nod and beckon them into an idling car.

Andrew sat behind the wheel and listened, window crooked enough to let their voices in but not enough for them to see him.

Over the last few days, he’d learnt more about this street and its hustlers than he had any right to know. He overheard their murmured fears - of him, of the killer, of themselves and their addictions. He eavesdropped as they discussed the punters that were weird or kind or cruel or stank of four-day old cheeseburgers. They reminded him of Foxes - young, melodramatic, beaten down too many times to stand straight, constantly bickering and bitching and gossiping about each other. The similarities annoyed him; he'd do anything to carve those years out of his memory. 

Stubbing out one cigarette, he lit another. This waiting game he’d been playing with Neil was becoming old, sitting on this street night after night like a letch with nothing better to do. No matter how close that may be to the truth, he was also bored – and that was a very dangerous state for someone with as many demons as Andrew.

So far, he’d gathered that the group that hung out here was one of New York’s open secrets – that the police turned a blind eye to the boys, but they also looked the other way when yet another one of them showed up dead. With no one else to investigate, the boys themselves had come up with a mythology around the murders – calling the deaths the work of the Toothfairy Killer, so named for the fact that the victims were invariably gay sex workers and none showed up with their teeth intact. 

Andrew’s mind was full of shadows already, it wasn’t hard to picture Neil’s body beaten and broken, hair dark with blood, hands lifeless and grey as the New York snow. He had more than enough collateral in his head to pull the image together.

All he had to do was blink and he was stepping out of East Haven, free of the drugs but not of the memories. Neil was there waiting for him – the brightest, sharpest thing in the room but utterly wrecked. Riko’s knives had carved something from Neil, the same way Andrew lost something to Proust. They were always losing parts of themselves.

Blink again: Nicky was telling Andrew between tears about Nathaniel Wesninski, about his bandaged face and splinted hands and bruises that made it hard for him to speak, to say goodbye to the Foxes before the Feds took him away. Ruined, Nicky had said, Neil had been unrecognisable.

Blink again: they were in a locker room. Neil dripped with blood, face pale enough to make Andrew think it was his. Andrew watched him scrambling after his ruined kit and his secrets as if they were the difference between life and death. 

_And even after that and so much else, he’d let Neil break their agreement on the bus._

Glancing at the dash, Andrew dragged himself out of the dark parts of his thoughts and back into the not-quite-silence of the shitty street. The snow drifted down, slow and soft. The lights flashed. 

A little while later, another car pulled up on the opposite curb. Juice got the nod and he went to the window, grinning a lopsided grin that made him look painfully young. There was little haggling, Juice was teasing as if he might just walk away but his smile stayed in place. Andrew tried not to watch as the deal was agreed, or as Juice slipped into the car, or as the driver’s hand flew up, clamped around the back of Juice’s head, and he disappeared.

Andrew glanced back across at Ellis. He looked pained. His lips were turning blue with the cold and there was no other sign of life on the street. The other boys hadn’t come back yet. There was no sign of Neil.

Lurking, it seemed, wasn’t working.

Which left option two. He’d thought of this on the way over, distasteful as it was.

Andrew rolled down his window and lent out of his window. He tapped on the door, just loud enough to alert Ellis that he was wanted. As the boy looked up, there was a wildness in his eyes that spoke of equal parts fear and desperation. At Andrew’s nod, Ellis trotted over, adjusting his jacket as he walked. Perhaps he was pretty once – Ellis’ eyes were dark and his hair a tarnished blond – but that time was over. His old-young face and outsized skull were the hallmark of a life long lost to whatever drugs he preferred.

There was no recognition when he looked at Andrew though; that was good.

“I’ll give you a hundred for half an hour,” Andrew said before Ellis could perfect his smile.

“Uh,” Ellis said, floundering. “Yeah, yeah. Alright then.”

Unlocking the car and pushing the passenger door open, Andrew waited until the boy was inside before locking the door again. With him came the rusty reek of a body perspiring chemicals.

“So what can I do for you, darling?” Ellis’ voice was different to the whine he usually preferred with the boys, low and purring.

Andrew fixed him with a stare. “Don’t,” he said. “I’m not interested.”

Ellis tried not to frown, but his eyes turned instantly unsure and wary. “What?”

“There was a guy here a couple nights ago. Red hair. Short,” Andrew said. “You know him.”

Something spiteful crossed Ellis’ features; he schooled them with difficulty. “You want him? I can be just as good, you know. No need to wait.”

Andrew’s mood soured. He wondered why he ever thought that a hooker would be any less annoying than the fools he picked up in bars. “I have no interest in you.” 

“But you’re _paying_ for me…”

“I want to know about Neil. Do you know him or not?”

That caught Ellis’ attention. “Neil? Bram said--” he started, stopped, winced. “We don’t have no Neil’s here.”

“Bram.” Andrew seized onto Ellis’ slip up with the desperation of a drowning man. Visions of an airport lounge filled his head, whispered truths and a forbidden name ringing in his ears. “Yes, that’s right.”

Ellis was sitting back against the door, hand clearly itching for the handle. There was a guilty line to his mouth, one that could either make this whole conversation pointless or would prise Ellis open like a rib cage during open-heart surgery. Andrew needed it to be the latter. He needed this information. 

“Hey, y’know, you can keep your money. I can just go.”

“Not yet,” Pulling himself out of his head, Andrew’s eyes grew sharp. Fear moved rapidly across Ellis' face like the ripples from a pebble dropped in water. “Tell me. What did _Bram_ say? Did he warn you about me? Did he tell you I was dangerous?”

“N…no. Just he’s... not a fan of uh... people who drive flashy cars. Says they’re more perverse. More money, more problems, you know.” Ellis’ laugh was hard and rushed.

“My car, hm?” 

He already knew Neil had seen him drive away, tires screaming. Had suspected he recognised the car from those wide, horrified eyes in the mirror.

Of course, seeing this car again must have been... upsetting. In so many ways Neil had given up his life and freedom for the Maserati – offering the cash in a gesture that Andrew had interpreted as _I want to stay_ , but better translated as _goodbye_. In his over-analysis of those last few weeks before the Bearcats game, Andrew realised that so many of Neil’s actions were that of a suicide: gifting the car, sharing his name, kissing Andrew. They had been the final forays of a man who knew he was going to die. Whether they’d meant everything or nothing to Neil was anyone’s guess. Either way, Andrew could begin to understand why Neil would warn the boys off him, why he might hate the car for symbolising a life he'd lost. 

“Can I go? I won’t tell anyone anything. I won’t… please I can just—”

“Stop babbling,” Andrew said, realising he probably went too still for Ellis’ ruined nerves. “Is he staying away from here because of me?”

“I don’t know. How would I know? I’m not his friend.”

“Lying isn’t going to help here, Ellis.”

“How do you—“

“Because Juice over there yelled your name down the street two nights ago and I’m not deaf.”

This wasn’t working. But neither was terrifying a junkie overdue for their next fix. Andrew recognised the sheen of Ellis’ skin, the glossiness of his eyes. _Aaron could have been this,_ he mused. _Perhaps if the tables were turned, Ellis could have been a doctor._

“I’m not here to hurt him,” Andrew said. Arguably, he didn’t know why he was here and he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t stab Neil on sight, only that it wasn’t his immediate intention. “I knew him in school.”

“Sure, man, sure. Just I got nothing to do with this so… let me go? Just I can get out this door and…” Sweat was beading on Ellis’ forehead, his hands were leaving clammy marks on the shined door handles.

Andrew grit his teeth, scowling. “Pass on a message and I’ll stop coming by.”

Clearly that was the wrong thing to say because it sent Ellis scrabbling back even further, so he was pressed into the further corner of the front seat, mouth spilling a litany of nonsense that Andrew finally translated as his attempt to humanise himself in the eyes of a villain.

“No… no, you don’t got to do this, man. I’m not a message. I want to call my sister, you know. She’s in Boone, you know it? North Carolina. I want to call her. She sent me a postcard saying she were expecting. I’m going to be an uncle. I don’t want—” 

“I’m not going to fucking kill you. I literally mean _a message_.” Andrew’s patience was up. “If that idiot needs help, he can call me. My number’s here.”

He held out a card. Simple white bearing his name, his number, his address. 

“Whuh…what?”

“My number.”

He unlocked the car door as Ellis’ trembling fingers reached out to take the small white card. 

“I don’t think he wants your number, man,” Ellis said, legs already half-way out and desperate to flee. “I dunno, maybe you mean well but he’s not the kind that accepts help.”

Andrew’s mouth twisted. Neil had never wanted Andrew’s help. He’d resisted and haggled and lied his way out of anything Andrew tried to offer. Right up until he hadn’t.

“And yet,” Andrew said. “When he calls, I will pick up and I will be there.”

Ellis was out and free before he said, “I don’t think he’ll call.”

Andrew didn’t reply. He waited for Ellis to step away, then he slid the Maserati into gear. Its quiet roar rumbled with reassurance.

No matter what Ellis thought, Andrew knew Neil would call.

Because sometimes when he dreamed, he was still sitting on a rooftop with Neil beside him, telling him about how Andrew gave him a key and called it home. 

Sometimes he was still pushing Neil down against the concrete and licking into his mouth for the first time. 

And sometimes he was picking Neil up from outside the Foxhole Court, hollow-eyed and falling apart, mourning a future he would never have. 

On that day, Neil had called him, breathed with him, and finally, reluctantly, like a drowning man too proud to say he couldn’t swim, he’d demanded rescue. 

Neil would call.

Andrew would pick up.

It was a truth - just like _sunrise_ and _Abram_ and _death_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts, feels, hit me. I live for your opinions.
> 
> xx


	4. balancing on breaking branches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unknown Number: leave me alone
> 
> Andrew: Good to see you still have an attitude problem.
> 
> He could have smirked. It had been less than two days, but he knew who this was. He thumbed them into his contacts and lay back against the bench, phone in his hand against his forehead. Neil had sent him a message. This was real. It wasn't over.

_IV_

_balancing on breaking branches_

***

The text came through during a training session, lighting up his phone as Andrew was mid-lift. He finished the reps, biceps and shoulders burning, before reaching for it.

> **Unknown Number:** _leave me alone_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Good to see you still have an attitude problem._

He could have smirked. It had been less than two days, but he knew who this was. He thumbed them into his contacts and lay back against the bench, phone in his hand against his forehead.

He was dripping sweat, skin stinging with it, bare chest heaving. His personal trainer lingered beside him. Her name was Bex and she lifted more than him with barely a grunt. Now she was eyeing him with disdain.

“You want to go again?” she asked.

She already knew the answer. Today, Bex had not been impressed – he was too distracted, too unfocused – two things that she had no time for.

“No. We’re done here,” he said.

She packed down without further question. “Coach says you’re due for a weigh in next week,” she said over her shoulder. “So maybe lay off the booze for a couple days, yeah?”

He didn’t move from where he lay on the bench, but he flipped her off and all but heard her eyes roll as she left. He’d seen her on one of those reality shows, scaling walls and running through impossible obstacles like a tiny demon. In a display of petulance, Andrew had told Kevin that he’d only take a trainer if it was with her. Three days later and she turned up with a face that smiled less than his and accepting absolutely none of his shit. He tolerated her.

But today he had bigger things to consider than his heart rate or his macros or whatever else Bex and Kevin demanded of him.

Sitting up, he grabbed his shirt and dragged it over his face and hair, still staring at his phone. He’d expected this reaction from Neil – being pushed away, being told to fuck off – but something loosened in his chest all the same. Right up until the next message anyway.

> **Neil** : _you came to pick up didn’t you_
> 
> **Andrew** : _I was driving home._
> 
> **Neil** : _that’s one hell of a scenic route_

It took a second for Andrew to remember that he’d given Ellis his card – address included – Neil would have seen exactly where he lived. But then again, Andrew really had been on his way home. He’d just… detoured. It wasn’t a lie.

> **Neil** : _well you came you saw you gloated now fuck off_

Gloated? Andrew’s brow furrowed, he could feel sweat slipping through his hair, past his ears. His face burned. He stretched his neck, backwards, forwards, side to side, trying to release the tension bunching in his shoulders.

> **Andrew** : _Why were you there?_
> 
> **Neil** : _you know what’s for sale, you tell me_
> 
> **Andrew** : _you don’t swing_
> 
> **Neil:** _yeah well it’s hard to disappear when the whole world knows your face and your name. great idea btw_

There was a fissure in Andrew’s chest, a chasm gaping wide. He couldn’t help the way his whole stomach clenched at the accusation. He remembered that conversation: the broken window in the dorm, how Andrew’s hands had smeared blood on the back of Neil’s neck, how slow Neil had been to understand what Andrew was saying. He’d been trying to give Neil options, buy him time.

Andrew had told him, “ _It's hard to kill a man when everyone's eyes are on him. Make them love you, make them hate you, I don't care. Just make them look at you.”_

Andrew had offered Neil a deal. “ _Give your back to me.”_

And Neil had accepted it.

> **Andrew** : _You did that yourself._

Back then, he’d thought fame had been a way to keep Neil safe – from Riko, from whatever monsters lurked in his past – play the game and become too loud and too well-known to just disappear. But that notoriety followed Neil into custody too.

Andrew remembered the press articles – the flurry around Neil’s disappearance, the mugshot that was passed around from paper to paper after it came out that Neil was the Butcher’s son. He hadn’t been photographed again, hadn’t been snapped going in and out of court, hadn’t been chased by paparazzi, but Andrew knew how hard those early weeks must have been when every other frontpage bore the faces of Nathan and Nathaniel Wesninski.

After all, only a few months later it had been his face and Aaron’s plastered below headlines. The trial for Drake’s murder had been bitter and cruel and Andrew had barely made it through listening to all the things they said about him, his abuser, his brother. His relationship with Aaron hadn’t survived. Nicky had clung on for a few more months but eventually backed off too. And for them, it had been nothing like the level of infamy achieved by the Wesninskis.

The press were vultures, picking you apart when you were still alive. Their attention was a Promethean punishment: endless, agonising, deserved.

> **Neil** _is_ _typing…_
> 
> **Neil:** _just stay away Andrew_
> 
> **Neil** _: your not my answer remember_
> 
> **Andrew:** _*you’re_
> 
> **Neil** _: ffs I do not have time for this_
> 
> **Andrew:** _Because you’re so busy and important?_
> 
> **Neil:** _fuck you_
> 
> **Neil _:_** _what do you even want_

It was a good question – Andrew wasn’t sure he could answer it. He stared at his phone screen, knowing Neil would now be waiting for the telltale dot dot dot.

But what could he say? 

When Andrew had found out what had happened – that Neil had been found only to be taken away – he’d searched for any hint or clue to Neil’s continued existence. There was little to go on, nowhere to start searching except with the FBI, but Andrew had tried trawling yellow pages, searching for every Abram in the book. He’d followed newswires and twitter threads and true crime forums fascinated by The Butcher of Baltimore. He’d paid attention to his criminology class whenever the case came up in discussion on the off chance that one of the idiots in his class said something useful. It all came to nothing.

As time passed, he’d half convinced himself that he was being sent signs, that Neil was giving him hints to his whereabouts – like the whiskey from Glasgow, or the brick of cigarettes he received from Prague, or the numerous postcards he’d received over the years, all unsigned.

Turned out Neil worked on street corners and hustled alongside junkies like Ellis and Juice. Scotland, Europe, and cheesy postcards of cities and fuzzy kittens clearly weren’t places he’d found and claimed as his own. They were meaningless, like everything else. Maybe Renee had sent them.

 _So what do you want?_ Drawled that voice in his head, and he felt his anger prickle along with the mockery of his conscience.

It wasn’t as prosaic as _answers_ or as simple as _reconnection_. Neil Josten was nothing – a nobody from nowhere, with no past and no future – hell, he wasn’t even real. But around him, everything became muddled. Neil was the chip in Andrew’s carefully honed control, the exception to all of his rules. He was the boy whose sharp edges matched his, whose experience made Andrew feel like he was falling. He was Abram: a truth that Andrew had carefully collected and preserved.

Andrew told himself he wanted nothing. But that answer wasn’t good enough. Not now. Not anymore. Not when _nothing_ no longer meant _Neil._

And that was way too much honesty, even with himself.

Andrew needed a drink.

His phone lit up again.

> **Neil** : _do you still want to blow me?_
> 
> **Neil** _: cos that’ll be 40 bucks – I’m guessing you’re good for it_

“Ha!” Andrew couldn’t stop his scoff, it clattered against the clean walls of the gym. _Still such a little shit,_ he thought. _But if he’s trying to push me away, he’ll have to do more than that._

> **Andrew** : _I don’t pay for sex._
> 
> **Neil** : _HA_ _I won’t pretend to believe that_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Have I ever lied to you?_
> 
> **Neil** : _idk have you?_
> 
> **Neil** : _you paid ellis_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Yeah for information on you – I didn’t fuck him._
> 
> **Neil** : _he was in your car for fifteen minutes and all you did was talk?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Your usual clientele may not have any stamina, but I can assure you I last longer than fifteen minutes._
> 
> **Andrew** : _And you’re the liar, not me._

Andrew watched as Neil started typing, stopped, started again, and then the bubbles disappeared and didn’t come back.

Cold pooled in his stomach.

 _Was this it? Would these be the last words he and Neil ever exchanged?_ He shook himself and cracked his neck. He couldn’t think like this. Of course, it wouldn’t be the end. He wasn’t going to let Neil disappear again. Not so easily.

Switching his phone to silent, he pocketed it and headed up to his shower. The apartment was one of those industrial, modern designs – all metal edges, hard lines, muted colours and little comfort. The floating staircase was the primary feature, climbing from the gym and pool up to the further two floors of his rooms. He ignored the mezzanine living room, where the bedroom sat lofted over the bookcase, climbing up to the kitchen on autopilot. He poured two fingers and rolled it in the glass. It wasn’t midday but he wanted this. He carried the glass downstairs again, taking a long sip before leaving it on the coffee table as he began to discard his clothes. Shoes, first. Armbands. Shorts. He left them on the floor in his wake, discarding his boxers just as he entered the walk-in shower and turned it on.

The water pressure was intense enough to almost hurt, the temperature chilly but quickly rising to scalding. He rolled his shoulders, stretching out the muscles that Bex had made him work and letting the mundanity of it all wash away his thoughts, just for a moment. Light poured in through the large true arched window, making his skin glow gold.

He’d chosen this apartment for the windows. There were so many of them, stretching nearly from ceiling to floor, constantly leaving him with the vague sensation that he could drop to his death at any moment. It was cruel, he knew that. An act of self-hatred, self-sabotage.

But the life of an athlete had been kind to him. Undeservedly so.

He spent his money as ruthlessly as he could and still the endorsements and sponsorships ensured he had too much for him to use.

When he’d found this place, he’d known would never be comfortable, never find peace in its walls. It had been the perfect choice.

By the time he turned the shower off, his skin was pink and warm and over-sensitive. He hissed through this teeth. Returning to the living room, Andrew drank his whiskey with the towel around his waist. He leant back against the leather sofa and stared upwards at the ceiling, counting the wrought iron beams over and over. His fingers itched for his phone but he wasn’t sure what to say.

There was too much to say, that was the problem. He wanted answers. He wanted to understand. He wanted to know why Neil was on a street corner and not half-way around the world. He wanted to piece together all the clues and solve the mystery that was Neil Josten, Nathaniel Wesninski, Abram.

***

_(Tues 23:17)_

> **Andrew** : _I never lied to you._
> 
> Status: Read

***

_(Wednesday 19:48)_

> **Andrew** : _you are so fucking annoying._
> 
> Status: Read

***

_(Friday 08:11)_

> **Andrew** : _read about kid missing in Bronx_
> 
> **Andrew** : _text me._
> 
> Status: Delivered 

***

_(Saturday 00:32)_

> **Andrew** : _do you realize ththings I dead_
> 
> **Andrew** : _*did_
> 
> **Andrew** : _yuu ran_
> 
> **Andrew** : _stupidhe rabit_
> 
> **Neil** : _are you drunk?_
> 
> **Neil** : _go to bed Andrew_
> 
> **Andrew:** _I hate you._
> 
> **Neil** : _yeh I know_
> 
> Status: Delivered

***

_(Saturday 06:19)_

> **Neil:** _hope you have aspirin this morning_
> 
> Status: Delivered
> 
> ***

_(Saturday 08:27)_

> **Neil** : _I’m not missing or dead btw_
> 
> Status: Read

***

_(Saturday 11:13)_

> **Andrew** : _as if I care_
> 
> **Neil** : _you do_
> 
> **Andrew** : _you’re nothing to me_
> 
> **Neil** : _I usd to think of that a lot you knw_
> 
> **Neil** : _hw you wnted nothgin_
> 
> **Neil** : _and that’s all I am_
> 
> **Neil** : _*blame car for typos_
> 
> **Andrew** : _I hate you._
> 
> **Andrew** : _I blame you and only you._
> 
> **Neil** : _we probably shouldn’t talk about blame_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Or perhaps we should._
> 
> **Neil:** _no_
> 
> **Andrew** : _even if_
> 
> **Neil** _: if?_
> 
> **Andrew** _: ~~I blame myself~~ _
> 
> **Andrew** _: ~~I know it was my fault~~ _
> 
> **Andrew** _is typing …_
> 
> **Andrew** _: Nothing._
> 
> Status: Read

***

_(Saturday 17:58)_

> **Neil** : _truth for a truth?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _we’re not teenagers Neil_
> 
> Status: Read

***

_(Saturday 19:08)_

> **Andrew** : _fine, yes_
> 
> Status: Read

***

_(Sunday 00:04)_

> **Neil:** _why do you still play exy?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _I made a deal._
> 
> **Neil** : _Kevin?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _That’s two questions_.
> 
> **Neil** : _ok ask yours_
> 
> **Andrew** : _How long have you been in New York?_
> 
> **Neil** _: eighteen months or so_
> 
> **Andrew** _: Your turn._
> 
> **Neil** _: so kevin?_
> 
> **Andrew** _: You’ll need to be more specific._
> 
> **Neil** _: whats kevin like with riko these days?_
> 
> **Andrew** _: You don’t watch exy anymore? Junkie like you doesn’t follow the press?_
> 
> **Neil** _: I see plenty. I also know better than most how well those two can act_
> 
> **Andrew** _: Kevin Day lost his spine a long time ago._
> 
> **Neil** _: that’s not an answer_
> 
> **Andrew** _: Riko still sees himself as king, though many playing Court challenge him. Kevin isn’t one of them._
> 
> **Neil:** _you do though_
> 
> **Andrew** : _I keep my promises._
> 
> Status: Read

***

_(Sunday 12:53)_

> **Neil** _: it’s your turn_
> 
> Status: Delivered

***

_(Sunday 01:32)_

> **Neil** _: guess u fell asleep_
> 
> **Neil** : _good night Andrew_
> 
> Status: Delivered

***

When Andrew woke on Monday morning, it was to an achy neck and an itch in his eyes that could only be exhaustion. There was an empty tumbler by his bed and his nose caught on the scent of stale whiskey, sending his stomach rolling.

Groaning, he staggered to the bathroom to throw up the little he’d eaten the day before. He let himself kneel by the loo, cheek against the cool porcelain and played back the last few days. It was a blur of anger so hot it scoured along his bones, of drinks drunks too fast and too often, and then those messages, those truths shared with Neil – so small and so meaningful that they pricked like a scalpel tracing over his skin. Neil probably didn’t even know how close his suggestion of swapping truths came to flaying Andrew alive.

 _How many times have we played this game_? whispered the voice in his head.

 _Too many_ , Andrew grit his teeth and breathed through his nose as his stomach twisted again. _Too many times_ , he’d imagined these conversations with Neil, imagined the questions and the answers. Admittedly, he’d also imagined punching Neil’s face in, visualised sliding a knife between his ribs; had – on other nights – pictured pushing him against a wall and pinning him there, wrists above his head, those flashing blue eyes drifting shut, his freckled neck exposed and irresistible.

Andrew closed his eyes and let the nausea roll through him. He felt his flesh sitting heavy on his bones, the weight of his decisions just below his skin.

There was no one in the world who could so effortlessly unman him as Neil Josten.

 _Bram,_ corrected his brain, _that’s his name now_. _A bastardisation of the truth._

Andrew pulled his sanity together slowly – doing his best to ignore the windows and the drop beyond them, doing his best to breathe, breathe, breathe.

He made it back to his bed, his phone that was almost dead where he’d fallen asleep on his conversation with Neil. His chest tightened at the messaged he’d missed.

“Good night,” he read aloud. “Fucking idiot.”

He tapped away from the messages and into his emails. He’d been ignoring them for days. Ever since the Tuesday weigh-in really - he'd turned up still a little drunk and only been passed by sheer dumb luck. Bex had taken him aside afterwards, given him a lecture that he barely listened to and definitely didn't remember. Riko had watched the whole thing, smile all teeth as Andrew had shouldered out of the stadium, determined to find another bar and another twink to fuck. He'd failed on the latter count - his brain was too full of Neil to pick up a stranger. 

And then there had been the article about the missing boy in the Bronx and suddenly he'd been skipping much more than just check-ins with his PT. Meals, meetings, messages from Kevin and his manager - he'd ignored them all. It had been such a short piece, barely a nib in the corner of the local Metro. But it had been enough. All his concentration had been consumed by whether that missing person could be _his_ missing person. The one he’d only just found. The one he wanted to kiss and kill in equal measure. 

_Which begged the question…_

He scrolled back to his messages and fired off a message to Neil:

> **Andrew** : _Did you know the boy who went missing?_
> 
> Status: Delivered

Not waiting to see if the message was read, he returned to the umpteen emails about magazine shoots that he was supposedly obligated to do – including an upcoming one with Kevin and Riko the following week.

He flicked through the email chain – mostly from Kevin, mostly expressing wiliness to bend to any and every suggestion as he always did. According to the email there were a myriad of decisions to make – time, place, messaging for the interview, topics to avoid, styles to agree – Andrew blinked when he saw the list of requirements and suggested scenes.

There was a point about haircuts and styling. So far, so normal.There was a point about the look and feel as dictated by the sponsors and brands. Bit overkill, in Andrew’s opinion, since he gave literally zero fucks about a stranger’s aesthetic vision.

There was a point about Andrew being given a temporary tattoo to match him with the former Ravens. His manager had the good sense to push back on that despite Kevin’s initial capitulation. (Kevin capitulated to everything these days). Riko hadn’t been happy about that apparently – but then again the asshole rarely was.

And then there was a point about nudity.

His eyes narrowed, scanning the instructions. Saw their manager had made a comment that the request would be considered given the sponsors. Noted that Kevin had sent six more messages, nagging about the benefits of this decision as if he thought Andrew could be persuaded. Riko apparently thought the idea was a good one too, although Andrew suspected that was simply because he knew how much Andrew would revolt against this.

 _Andrew – since you’ve not replied,_ read the most recent email from his manager _, we’re assuming you’re in agreement with the vision for the shoot and that you have no further considerations for the editorial team._

Except Andrew did have considerations.

Hell, they knew his rules.

Why exactly did they think he was willing to change them now? He'd been letting too much slip if they thought they could bully him into something like this. 

Andrew sucked air through gritted teeth and wondered, not for the first time, why he bothered with exy and this half-life that he loathed. Kevin had never kept his promise, had failed over and over to give Andrew a reason to live beyond keeping their bargain. He still shrank himself to be second to Riko – even when Jeremy Knox increasingly outshone them both, even when their coaches at Court told him to take that extra step, to take that extra chance on goal. Kevin wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it. He’d lost that feral edge, the confidence and hunger. 

It was a truth universally acknowledged that if Andrew hadn’t stayed at Palmetto, Kevin would have gone back to Edgar Allen after Neil left. Maybe not immediately. But he would have flown back to the Nest. Instead, Andrew had done what he did best and kept his promises, binding Kevin so tightly to him that the striker could barely piss without Andrew knowing for their last two years.

When they’d made it to the pros and Andrew had followed Kevin to Utah, to Denver, to Court.

And Riko had been there – smug, smirking, borderline insane – waiting for them.

It was a miracle, in Andrew’s eyes, that the Raven King hadn’t been caught for some kind of crime yet. There was a bloodthirst in his eyes and a cruelty that not even the coaches who fawned over him could miss. But they would ignore his machinations, his manipulations and relentless conniving for the most part. After all, he was still considered too good to lose (or perhaps that was the accompanying sponsors).

Andrew scanned the emails again and scowled. This set of _rules_ for the GQ shoot had Riko’s mucky little fingers all over them. And he would not stand for it.

Fingers flying over the keyboard, he typed out his refusal of the terms. There was no way he was doing a nude shoot alongside Riko Moriyama.

It was as he sent the message off that he saw Neil’s reply.

 **Neil** : _only of him_

 **Neil** : _he doesn’t work this side of town_

A curl of cool relief travelled over Andrew’s arms, prickling his skin like the surface of a pond in the rain. Neil wasn’t near where this killer was active. That was good.

> **Neil** : _hows your day_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Small talk? Really?_
> 
> **Neil** : _idk too tired to ask questions rn_

Andrew contemplated this for a moment, turning his thoughts over in his head one by one. If he pushed Neil now, he might give better answers – vulnerability did that to a person, loosened their tongue. But pressing for advantage could also drive Neil away.

He made up his mind.

> **Andrew:** _I’m doing a photoshoot with Riko Moriyama next week._
> 
> **Neil** : _holy shit_ _no way_
> 
> **Neil** _: you never do shoots with him_
> 
> **Andrew** : _So you are paying attention._
> 
> **Neil** _: maybe a bit_
> 
> **Neil** _: so why now?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Five years since we made Court._
> 
> **Neil** : _oh_ _yeh_
> 
> **Andrew** : _~~it might have been tolerable with you~~_
> 
> **Andrew:** _~~do you miss it?~~ _
> 
> **Andrew** _: It will be a disaster._
> 
> **Neil** _: you’ll have to send me photos_
> 
> Status: read.

***

The next few days passed with little fanfare. Neil dropped in and out, sounding more and more exhausted with each new message – his spelling went to shit and all he could ask about was the lightest stuff: Kevin, Exy, Riko.

 _What it was like playing with them together?_ Tedious.

 _What it was like when they missed out on the Olympic finals?_ Boring.

 _Was Riko still dangerous?_ To Andrew’s sanity, yes. To others, also yes.

 _Did he still hurt his teammates?_ He tries. He fails. He fumes.

 _What did Kevin think of him?_ Terrified and browbeaten. He’s a coward.

 _How did sunshine Jeremy handle them?_ He’s disappointed in them but respects them enough to keep playing.

Andrew tried to keep things light in turn – the problem was there was very little in Neil’s life that was light or easy.

He’d asked, _what are you up to?_

 _Working_ , Neil had replied, and Andrew had shattered a glass against the wall.

So now he kept asking stupid things:

Do you like snow? _I hate being cold._

Do you still drink your coffee black? _as a raven. sorry, not sorry._

Favourite place in the city? _honestly, my apartment right now – it has a fireplace._

Did you come here before now? _when I was a kid? Yeah. I was probably about eleven..._

If Andrew was surprised by how much he cared about the answers, he certainly didn’t let it show.

Nor would he admit how his stomach tightened whenever a new message came in or how his chest filled with bees when Neil’s tone became soft and sleepy. Talking like this felt as familiar as fury, as simple as disdain. Perhaps the gap between them – the space and distance of text – helped too.

With each text, something in him rose and fell like a wave against his ribs – cool and sure and soothing. Andrew didn’t know whether to hate it or let it consume him. He could easily let himself be swallowed whole by this feeling. It would be so simple to fall.

But he knew it couldn’t last – this was a stopgap, a pause in reality that would have to crumble sooner or later. The two of them were too broken, their edges too sharp not to cut and bruise. They were not meant for peaceful nights or comfortable days. Andrew had given up on those long before Neil Josten.

It was fatalism that ensured he wasn’t surprised when the question came – the one he’d expected since the first text.

> **Neil** : _do you ever see the others? the foxes I mean?_

Andrew’s skin tingled, his muscles tensed. He contemplated not answering, shutting down the chat and pretending he hadn’t seen it. He lay there, brain reading the question over and over and over. Ignoring it was so tempting.

> **Andrew** : _No._

He dropped his phone to his chest after replying, waiting for the backlash. His relationship with the Foxes wasn’t something he spoke about to anyone – his time at Palmetto was something he detested thinking about, let alone discussing. Kevin was enough of a daily reminder of everything he’d so nearly had there – a family, a purpose, a truth – everything that in the end he had lost.

 _No_ , he corrected himself, _everything and everyone who he’d burnt away, cauterised like a diseased branch from a tree._

Against his sternum, his phone vibrated. He prepared himself to reply, taking grip of the flames in his stomach, letting the anger bleed back into him: familiar, simple.

> **Neil** : _none of them? you don’t speak to any of them?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Wymack occasionally. We get a drink when he’s in town._
> 
> **Neil** : _but… why?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _~~you were gone~~_
> 
> **Andrew** : _~~I was never their friend~~_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Not your question_.
> 
> **Neil** : _but what about Renee, Aaron, Nicky?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _~~they left~~_

Andrew lurched upwards, feeling his head rush and his pulse quicken. Prickles of anger goosed up his arms, his chest, his throat. He deleted what he’d typed and felt a snarl curling his mouth.

He really didn’t want to have this conversation. He didn’t want to think about his stupid cousin or useless brother. He didn’t want to think about the emails he slowly stopped receiving from Renee. He wanted a cigarette and a whiskey. He wanted to lash out and feel his knuckles split.

> **Andrew** : _Does your pathetic junkie heart miss exy?_
> 
> **Neil** : _you’re asking that to be cruel_
> 
> **Neil** : _but yeah_
> 
> **Neil** _: yes I miss it_
> 
> **Neil** : _leaving everyone…_
> 
> **Neil** _: after everything that happened…_
> 
> **Neil** : _it was like… I survived but it didn’t feel like I had_

Andrew stared at his phone, skin feeling hot and cold at the same time as he read the texts. The three dots of doom showed that Neil was still typing, still typing, still typing and then…

> **Neil** : _I know you hated me for it but_ _exy_ _was almost everything to me. I risked it all for the game. I didn’t want to give it up or let the foxes go. the first few months after I was a ghost. there was nothing left except the fbi and their questions over and over and then the trials. I told myself it was for the best. this way you’d all be safe but… I hated it. I hated everything and everyone until it wasn’t enough and I couldn’t pretend._
> 
> **Neil** _: then it just hurt. for a long time._

Neil’s unexpected honesty never failed to catch Andrew unawares. Neil was chaos – this boy who was every inch a lie but who, with every movement and every gesture, screamed to be made real. Memories flashed like thunder: Millport, Columbia, rooftops and long drives. He remembered seeing Neil standing so close to the precipice. He remembered thinking how he never wanted Neil to fall.

 _But he had_ , Andrew realised. He’d been shattered and torn apart and lost pieces of himself that he’d never get back. He read over the messages again. One thing lay buried between the words and in Andrew’s chest, it was like someone had lit a candle – just a small one, just pinprick of light in the darkness as he realised: _Neil had wanted to stay._

He breathed in through his nose, exhaled slowly, trying to force his muscles to relax, to uncoil. He reached for his anger, pulling it back under his skin, feeling it simmer down to a controlled heat around his bones.

> **Andrew** _: I did warn you about that fucking martyr card, Josten._

There was a pause and Andrew wished he could see Neil’s face, wished he could take hold of his chin and watch as every emotion played out in those too blue eyes. He wondered if Neil would wrap his fingers around his wrist like he used to; if he’d feel for Andrew’s pulse and smile that crooked smile.

> **Neil** _: what’s my percentage?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _What_?
> 
> **Neil** : _my percentage. of how much you want to kill me?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _You broke the system_.
> 
> **Andrew** : _You’re way past 100_.
> 
> **Neil** : _wow remind me to keep avoiding you irl_
> 
> **Andrew** _: As if that’s ever worked before._
> 
> Status: Read

Alone in his room, tumbler empty and eyes sandy with oncoming sleep, Andrew placed his phone on the side table, face up. The screen light broke through the darkness that had gathered without him noticing. For a moment, he waited. He let himself imagine that another text would come through. That the light would keep shining. 

And then, as lights always did in his life, the screen and the room went dark. 


	5. get your knuckles bloody for me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because yesterday had been the photoshoot with Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day. Yesterday should have been wretched and grim. But it hadn’t been so simple. Since Neil had started responding to Andrew’s texts nothing had been simple.

_V_

_get your knuckles bloody for me_

***

A thin rain was mizzling down, so fine that with each turn of his head Andrew could almost have sworn it was falling upward; thin strings of water left static in their wake, shimmering and seemingly suspended outside of the looming windows of Andrew’s apartment.

The sky was white. Andrew stared up at it, looking for a cloud, a shadow, a plane – anything to break up the endless, empty, nothing above him.

It was one of those days. The peculiar ones where he didn’t know if he needed to move or stay very, very still; where the idea of being around people both enticed and repulsed him. He lit a cigarette from his position on the bed, one eye shut against the lighter’s flare. He didn’t inhale. He let it burn. The smoke curl added a haze in front of his eyes.

His brain was caught in the lacuna, the desolation within his ribs. His skin tingled with cold, though it could easily have been something else: _Doubt. Uncertainty. Fear. Anticipation. Hope._ All variants of the same theme.

Because yesterday had been the photoshoot with Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day. Yesterday should have been wretched and grim. The only satisfaction he should have taken should have been when Riko realised that if Andrew was going to be forced to dress in black and red, then _he_ was also going to be forced to wear orange. It was tit for tat - reminding Kevin of the team that really made him, making sure Riko knew he couldn’t just _win_. Fox colours didn’t suit the starting striker and not even professionalism could hide his fury at being outmanoeuvred.

“You wanted a throwback shoot, Riko,” their manager had said, looking rather puzzled at Riko’s apparent ire.

Riko sneered at the Fox themed fashion items. “Yes, back to the _Perfect Court_.”

“Which never existed,” Andrew said, twisting his wrist in a way that hinted at the knives in their wrist bands. “And never will.”

Kevin had cringed as Riko lurched round as if to force him to back him up.

Andrew had stepped between them. “Tell me, where’s Jean again?”

That shut them all up. Andrew had smiled his most manic smile. “No? Nothing to say? No rebuttal? Shall we all go say cheese for the cameras then?”

Yes, yesterday should have been all about its petty vengeance, it’s savage victories. Andrew should have posed as instructed, bedevilled Riko until the bastard showed his fangs, and then left as soon as the shoot was done. In his plans, he was going straight to Houston Street, would find a bar, knock back some whiskey, fuck an attractive stranger and go home sated if not cleansed from a day spent with two men as pathetic as his former Raven teammates. 

But it hadn’t been so simple.

Since Neil had started responding to Andrew’s texts nothing had been simple.

He found himself waking up earlier, working out with more energy, smoking less, breathing more. He found himself driving to grocery stores instead of late-night bars. Bex asked if he’d be up for freerunning again soon and he’d agreed. She hadn’t asked him in a while, and he knew it was because his head wasn’t there. The offer, like everything else, unsettled him.

Then during the shoot, he’d felt every bit of vindictive satisfaction as Riko’s temper piqued – but he’d also taken the time to send messages backwards and forwards with Neil. When he was forced into black leather and a red collared coat, he’d shared a selfie; when Riko had glowered at the camera in a garishly orange puffer jacket from Fendi, he’d snapped a shot and sent it without thinking.

> **Neil:** _That is one constipated face. Or should I say pumpkin?_
> 
> **Andrew _:_** _He’s furious. I feel sorry for whoever he ends up with tonight._
> 
> **Neil** : _I do not need that image in my head thanks_
> 
> **Andrew** : _You’re assuming too much of him. He’s publicly said he’s disinterested in sex._
> 
> **Neil** : _he’s ace? I didn’t remember seeing that… what did you mean then?_
> 
> **Andrew** _: I don’t know or care about his sexuality._ But _he always takes out one of the management team for a debrief after shoots and events – it’s how he stays in control of whatever we’re doing. His whole life is fucking performance art._
> 
> **Neil** : _every time? so like tonight he’ll do that? that’s interesting. and kinda pathetic._
> 
> **Neil:** _send me more photos?_

Andrew complied. Neil’s horror and amusement throughout the day encouraged Andrew to send half a dozen more – a flash of his costume changes: the ripped jeans, the dark coats, the flexed muscled and heavy boots. He’d found his mouth flicking upwards in a look that made Kevin stare at him in alarm (then again he was always alarmed these days).

And when the day was over, when he was safe in the Maserati, sinking back into the seat that was soft with age and fingers finding their way to the well-worn grooves in the wheel, he’d checked his phone, seen a message from Neil, opened it and…

> **Andrew** _: You have a cat._
> 
> **Andrew** _: And a tattoo._
> 
> **Neil** _: I do_
> 
> **Neil** _: this is Moggle_
> 
> **Andrew** _: What kind of name is Moggle?_
> 
> **Neil** _: my mom used to call cats mogs but I couldn’t just call her Mog, that would be like calling her Cat, so I added some letters_
> 
> **Andrew** _: She’s huge._
> 
> **Neil** : _she’s at least part maine coon but she was abandoned so can’t be 100% sure_
> 
> **Neil** _: [image attached]_
> 
> **Neil** _: look how smol she was_
> 
> **Andrew** _: Not anymore._
> 
> **Neil** _: nope_

Andrew couldn’t stop staring at the photos.

Neither of them were of Neil really, just his legs, crossed at the ankles with a cat sprawled between them. There was the outline of a tattoo on the back of his thigh – Andrew had twisted his phone this way and that trying to see more of a picture and failing. He’d never imagined Neil as someone who’d willing seek out more body ink or modification. Not after the Nest and all the things Riko had done to him. But then again, if Neil’s messages over the last few days were anything to go by, he’d learnt to move forward. He’d changed.

 _Have I changed too?_ In his heart of hearts, Andrew knew he hadn’t. His anger had scorched the earth. His hate had been all-consuming, infinite and unyielding. Everyone had seen the light go out inside him when he woke up to find Neil was gone; no one had ever been able to ignite more than fury inside him ever since.

 _Until now_ , he supposed. He could admit to himself that this crawling feeling in his spine was curiosity, that every moment since he’d seen Neil stepping out of the car had been stained the colour of intrigue.

And now the sky was white.

And Andrew remembered reading once how, on cold mornings, the first white cloud of breath was proof of living. That it was proof of the body’s warmth, the movement of air into lungs, oxygen into blood, and back again. _Our lives’ miraculous diffusion out into the empty air._

And he figured, that even though he hadn’t been alive for a long time, perhaps some part of him had survived - been frozen, locked in stasis, trapped in the dark whilst the rest of him burned – perhaps, just perhaps, it was still possible to be revived.

***

It was rare for Kevin to call these days.

When he wasn’t at practice and under Andrew’s ever-watchful eye, he was with Thea. The two had married eighteen months ago after she blew out her shoulder and retired from professional exy. She now coached at Barnard College and all in all seemed to be doing well, commentating from time to time and pioneering the first women-only team. There’d been a magazine shoot cover with her and Dan Wilds a few months ago, Kevin had tried to tell Andrew about it. He hadn’t cared. They didn’t do small talk or catch ups. They didn’t speak unless it was necessary. To Andrew, Kevin was an obligation – and that was where their relationship now ended.

“What do you want?” Andrew answered the phone with his eyes already narrowing.

“It’s Riko…” Kevin said. “I thought you ought to know?”

“Is that a question?”

“No?”

Andrew let out a breath between his teeth. He never thought he’d say it but Kevin was far less irritating at Palmetto. “Speak.”

“I think… after the shoot… he’s really angry…”

“Riko? Angry? The man who smashed your hand? I am shook.”

“Andrew,” Kevin whined. “I mean he’s really really mad. He’s sent me all these texts… then told me to get rid of them.”

“And you deleted them all like a good boy, I assume.”

“No.”

Andrew paused. That was new. He’d told Kevin to forward over anything Riko sent to him after the Foxes were disqualified with Neil’s disappearance. In recent years, it was almost their only form of regular communication. But what Riko asked, he usually received. Especially from Kevin. “Have you sent them to me?”

“Just now,” Kevin said. “I know the season doesn’t really start again until the end of the month but the things he’s asking for… it’s not just me he wants to hurt, he’s furious at you, he’s furious at the team…”

“Nothing new there.”

Kevin’s breathing rattled over the phone. A weary, broken thing. “I know you’re disappointed in me,” he said. “I know you’re only here because of our deal–”

“Don’t flatter yourself–”

“—But the things he’s saying terrify me. He seemed genuinely unhinged and I just… I want to warn… to ask… I don’t know… can you back down for a bit?”

“What?”

“Back off from Riko. Don’t antagonise him, don’t taunt him, don’t… don’t bring up Jean again.”

Andrew’s rage wicked to life and his mouth turned into a snarl that he was sure Kevin would hear down the line. “You want me to back down, to give him what he wants because of a few fucking texts?”

“I want to be safe. I want to stop having to fight. I think if we just play along, you know, because he has an idea for how we play this season and if we just go with it instead of pushing back then maybe he’ll calm down and…”

Andrew had to wonder when the game became about spinning stories rather than scoring points. He didn’t care either way. Exy was a bastard sport played by bastard men. He cared nothing for it except that it kept him close enough to Kevin to keep him safe from Riko. Keeping his promise. And now Kevin wanted him to break it. To back down and play nice. _Fuck him._

“You don’t disappoint me, Kevin. You disgust me. Do you think the monsters won’t bite just because you lie still when they come for you? Do you think it won’t hurt so bad if you just stay very quiet?” Andrew’s words were designed to hurt – they were the bruises and screams that he carried inside himself until they had grown claws of their own. “You say you want to stop fighting, well congratulations you never started. You ran to Wymack. You hid behind me. And then when things got hard you folded into Riko’s shadow again.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Nothing is ever fair,” Andrew hissed. “Not this. Not Riko. Not what happened to Jean or Neil. _You do not get to ask me to back down._ ”

There was a pause filled only with the stutter of Kevin’s breathing over the phone. There was a hitch like he was on the verge of tears and then Kevin murmured. “We never talk about Neil.”

They didn’t. When Andrew had come home from the hospital only to learn that Neil was gone, he’d shut down. Any time a Fox mentioned their lost striker he’d walked off the court. Any time a competitor tried to take his name in vein, they’d met with Andrew’s unrelenting ire. Neil’s name became a taboo. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken the name in Kevin’s presence – after all, Kevin had known the truth about Neil, had known what Neil was up against and not told Andrew. There was no recovering from that betrayal – and as his head filled with images of a frozen street and auburn hair beneath a street light, he knew he’d never forgive Kevin. Not for any of it. 

“This conversation is done,” he said. “Do not try to tell me how to do my job again.”

He hung up. Heading to the kitchen, Andrew poured a tumbler of whiskey and grit his teeth at the burn. It was his first in days and it sat oddly in his chest.

He looked out of the window and his stomach lurched at the drop below him. The glass trembled in his hand. He looked up and forced himself to remember how to breathe. 

***

> _(Thursday 12:53)_
> 
> **Neil** _: it’s your turn_
> 
> Status: Delivered

***

> _(Thursday 13:57)_
> 
> **Andrew** _: How many languages do you speak now?_
> 
> **Neil** _: that’s random_
> 
> **Neil** : _well ive ended up picking up a fair bit of Russian, Romanian, Serbian… My Spanish is a lil better now and italian 2 - so 7 or 8_
> 
> **Andrew** : _You’re so annoying._
> 
> **Neil** : _haha are you impressed_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Absolutely not._
> 
> **Neil** : suuuuuure
> 
> **Andrew** : _Your turn Neil._
> 
> Status: Read

***

> _(Thursday 18:13)_
> 
> **Neil:** _kk I thought of a good one_
> 
> **Andrew** _: I’m riveted._
> 
> **Neil** _: is it true you now know parkour?_
> 
> **Andrew** _: Where did you read that?_
> 
> **Neil** _: erm one of the exy blogs or something on twitter. It was a rumour for a while_
> 
> **Andrew** : _I’m aware of it._
> 
> **Neil** : _so?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Yes_.
> 
> **Neil** : _wow_ _and you said you hate heights_
> 
> **Andrew** : _I hate falling._ _There’s a difference_.
> 
> **Neil** : _isn’t it 90% falling?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _Not your turn._
> 
> **Neil** : _fine, noted as a topic for another time_
> 
> **Andrew** : _It needs an in-person explanation. If you’d agree to meet with me._
> 
> _Neil is typing..._
> 
> **Andrew** : _That’s my question._
> 
> **Neil** _: meet with you_
> 
> **Andrew** _: Yes._
> 
> **Andrew** _: It can be somewhere neutral. A coffee shop. A diner._
> 
> **Andrew** : _Don’t answer it now._
> 
> _Neil is typing…_
> 
> _Neil is typing…_
> 
> Status: Read

***

A day passed and another and another.

Neil didn’t reply to Andrew’s question.

He did send a picture of Moggle (as if that was normal) and Andrew spent hours searching the shot for more details of Neil’s life (which was definitely not normal).

It shouldn’t have meant anything. This silence.

But Andrew found himself checking his phone even when he knew there was no new text. At training, at the coffee shop, at the gym, in the car, at his apartment with its cruel view of the city he so loathed. He kept checking. 

He found himself pacing and pondering, whiskey in hand. He wondered if he’d pushed too hard, too soon – and then he wondered why he even fucking cared. Neil would do what Neil wanted to do, just as he always had. 

Still he checked his phone. Refreshing his messages over and over. Peering at the photos of that huge cat as if it was the sphinx and Neil it’s riddle.

He was plagued by that niggling thought: if Neil wanted to vanish from Andrew’s life again he had the knowledge and no doubt the means.

 _Plus there's that killer, right?_ Whispered the voice in his head. _Message him. Check he's alive._

He shook himself. No matter what happened - whether he chose to leave or went completely silent or was murdered - there was little likelihood that Andrew would ever find him again. The thought made his stomach twist, his chest burn. Or maybe that was the cigarettes.

 _He’s not your answer_ , he reminded himself as he flipped his phone face down, trying to ignore it.

He knew one person couldn’t save another. Not really. He had worked that out when they were sitting on a rooftop and Neil _kept fucking staring._ He knew that holding onto one person to survive could destroy you - but hell, wasn’t that the whole sorry story of his life? _He should know better by now._

Still, when his fingers itched to his phone, he was powerless to stop himself from refreshing the screen once again.

***

It was four days later, nearly five as the clocked ticked towards midnight, when the message came through:

> _(Monday: 23:48)_
> 
> **Neil** : _you drove away_
> 
> **Neil** : _you saw me and you left_
> 
> **Andrew** : _I don’t see a question. Nor an answer to mine._
> 
> **Neil** : _Did you mean to find me?_
> 
> **Andrew** : _No_.
> 
> _Neil is typing…_
> 
> _Neil is typing…_
> 
> **Neil** : _Oh_.
> 
> **Andrew** : _Are you disappointed?_
> 
> **Neil** : _idk_
> 
> **Andrew** : _I didn’t mean to find you that night but._
> 
> **Neil** : _but?_

But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been looking.

But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been searching, half hoping, even all these years later.

But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been seeing the shadows of Neil Josten everywhere – in clubs, in bars, in streets, in shops, in the blank space by his side and the silences in which he could almost imagine a conversation.

> **Andrew** : _Yes. But._

Neil would understand his clarification, he assumed, teeth gritted. He watched the screen. But watching didn't stop him from startling as the phone in his hand began to ring.

> _Incoming Call: Neil Abram Josten._

His hand didn’t shake as he answered. His thoughts didn’t twist in an anxious circle. He didn’t feel a half-second from losing his mind. And his control certainly didn’t waver as he said, “Neil.”

“Come and get me from the laundromat,” rasped a voice that was so familiar, so real.

Andrew held the phone to his ear but he couldn’t make his voice work. He nodded. He hung up. He stared at the phone in his hand and saw the flashing timer: fourteen seconds. That was all the time it took to split him open and expose the last vulnerable threads of his heart to the elements.

Outside the sky was black and the snow fell in a whirligig of white and yellow as the wind snatched and raged in between the high rises of Manhatten.

Andrew put his phone in his pocket, grabbed his jacket and his keys and headed to the Maserati.


	6. second, third, and hundredth chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew: I’m here
> 
> Status: read.
> 
> He waited a minute, two. Realised Neil wasn’t going to come out.
> 
> He frowned. It was warm in the Maserati. It had heated seats and having his hands on the wheel always filled him with a sense of control. But if Neil wasn’t coming out, he was going in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mentions of past violence, references to sex work and sexual violence.

_VI_

_Second, third, and hundredth chances_

***

_Proof of life_. It was the first thought that ran though Andrew’s head as he crawled up the street to the twenty-four-hour laundromat.

He passed the boys as he went, their eyes hungry and watching. He wasn’t surprised that there were three of them out even in the frigid early morning hours, nor that one of them was the waifish Ellis. Each of their faces became vaguely hazy as their breath curled upwards from their mouths. _Could you call that proof of living?_

He cut the engine. The silence fell heavy as the snow. He glanced out of the window towards the laundromat. It was impossible to see inside through the glare of neon lights.

> **Andrew** : _I’m here_
> 
> Status: read.

He waited a minute, two. Realised Neil wasn’t going to come out.

He frowned. It was warm in the Maserati. It had heated seats and having his hands on the wheel always filled him with a sense of control. But if Neil wasn’t coming out, he was going in.

He grit his teeth. Breathed in. Let it go. Put his hand on the door and stared out through the snow as it flurried and burst between him and the laundromat’s door : red, orange, white. _Open 24 Hours_.

He didn’t know if this was this the meeting he’d asked for. It wasn’t exactly neutral turf.

He didn’t know if this was something else. Something like before. There had been a tone to Neil’s voice on the phone – like exhaustion, like pain – so familiar that it echoed to another day from what felt like another life. Back then the sun had beaten down, harsh and bright and unrelenting, and Neil had been a pipedream whose mouth Andrew had yet to kiss, whose hands he had yet to guide to his shoulders, whose truths he was only just beginning to uncover.

He clenched his phone in his pocket and pushed himself out into the cold. The wind hit him first, brutal and ferocious. He slammed the door shut and jerked his collar up, tucking his chin down as he marched across the road. The wind was blistering. His skin stung. His feet crunched as they sunk into drifts well past his ankles. The news had called this the worst winter on record and he could believe it. March was around the corner, yet the snow continued to suffocate all warmth or hope for change. With every step it was like a million hands snatching at him, trying to push him back, push him down. He ignored them. He could feel the attention of the watching boys. He ignored those too.

The door didn’t tinkle so much as scream open, the wind slamming it back against its hinges. Andrew blew in, nearly slipping as his feet hit the florothane floor. He had to use his full weight to close the door again. Once he did, his ears pricked, his neck itched. There was someone behind him.

Turning, slowly, his stomach sank. It was an old woman, dark skinned and wrinkled. Her eyes were narrowed. Her mouth puckered into a thin line.

“We don’t take your business in here,” she said. Her tone was one that Andrew suspected would make other men blush.

As it was, he raised an eyebrow. “And what business is that?”

“Any kind that ain’t the laundry kind. Out.” She gestured at the door. Her fingers were snarled and arthritic. 

Andrew didn’t budge. He let his eyes roam the machines, the flickering lights. Other than the lady there was no one in the shop. It was just the two of them and the smell of stale soap.

“I told you,” the woman interrupted his examination of the launderette. “Get.”

When Andrew looked back at her, he was looking down the barrel of a gun. He raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

She took off the safety. He probably should have raised his hands.

Words flurried through his head, thick and fast and nonsensical, each one melting before they could land on his tongue. He wanted to explain. To beg her to let him stay. To ask about Neil – _Bram –_ if she knew him, if he was here. He wanted to refuse. To spring forward like he knew he could and rip that gun from her hand, let her back down and listen.

He did none of those things. Instead he wrenched himself back into the snow. Pulling his jacket up again as the cold wrapped around him once more.

He’d wait then. If Neil wasn’t here… he’d just wait.

 _He’ll come_ , Andrew told himself. _He’ll be here._

Fumbling with the zip on his coat, he pulled out his cigarettes and took several attempts to light up before the tip sparked and smoke curled up into the black and white sky. His breath shuddered in, out - _proof of fucking life_ – and he glanced over at the Maserati.

The lights flashed. A deliberate one, two.

There was someone inside it.

Andrew moved without thinking, drawing on the speed and surety that made him the best goalkeeper in international exy. But then there was the ice. He slipped, landing on his arse, cigarette skittering out of his hands. Fury lanced up his spine, pain fanning the flame. He was on his feet and moving again, reaching the car, reaching the door, reaching and pulling it open and going to grab the suicidal fool who thought he’d try to steal what Neil Josten had given him.

He was halfway inside, reaching over the passenger seat, before he realised that the face staring back at him was the one that he’d been looking for. It was bruised and swollen on one side, but it was more than recognisable.

“Neil,” he said.

Neil’s face contorted, a grimace or a smile. “I didn’t think you’d go inside.”

Andrew just stared at him. Neil sat pressed against the driver’s side, one hand on the door, one on the wheel. His impossibly blue eyes caught in the lights, focused and calculating. Andrew wanted to push forward, to complete the movement he’d begun, to reach out and confirm that Neil was here. That he was _real_. But he hung suspended between the snow and the Maserati, unsure and unsteady in a way that was familiar. It felt like looking over a rooftop. It felt like the moment before the fall. 

“You’re letting in the cold,” Neil said.

Andrew blinked, shook himself and slid into the passenger seat. Neil held out his hand for the keys and Andrew passed them over. A gesture that hadn’t been automatic for nearly a decade.

“Can we go to yours?” asked Neil. “I… need to lie low for a while.”

***

Neil drove and Andrew drank in every inch of him.

At Palmetto, Neil Josten had been a flighty creature, a thousand small and constant gestures belying his rabbit heart. Over the months they’d spent together, those tell-tale fidgets had begun to fade as Neil gathered his spine and his will and chose fight over flight. Now they were almost entirely smoothed away, the only sign of his ill-ease coming from the way his eyes flickered to the mirrors over and over, as if fearful of being followed.

Still, his hands on the wheel were steady. Andrew noted there were scars on his knuckles and over the backs of his hands. They were new, unlike the ragged skin of his wrists. Andrew had pinned those wrists. He’d kissed those scars, those knuckles. He wondered how many others had done the same now.

The rest of Neil was scarred too – his unbruised cheek was streaked by thin but fading lines, his eyebrow had a new nick in it, Riko’s tattoo was replaced by a mottled circle that matched the ones on his hands.

Andrew trailed his eyes over Neil’s profile, the sharp cheekbones and the way Neil’s hair lit up like a flame as they moved between streetlights.

“Staring,” Neil said.

Andrew felt his stomach twist and that creeping horror bleeding in. It was the way he always used to feel around this man who shouldn’t be possible – who barely existed yet remained irrefutable. He was sure he’d blink, and he’d be gone again. He’d wake up alone in his apartment and this would be one hell of a whiskey-vivid dream.

“Go round the back for the parking,” Andrew said as they approached his building.

Neil nodded and Andrew saw his wince. Whoever did this to him had done a number and Andrew’s stomach twisted with anger. His fists clenched where they sat on his knees.

They parked up in silence. Neil leant around to grab a backpack. Andrew wondered if this was a replacement for the duffle. ( _Should he say that he still had the original shoved in the back of a wardrobe upstairs, binder and all_?). It was smaller and more pathetic if so. Then Neil turned again and lifted out a basket. Inside was a very large cat that was very much asleep.

“You brought your fucking monster cat.”

“She couldn’t stay on her own,” Neil said. His face did that thing again, twisting with _something_ that Andrew couldn’t read. “If it’s a problem we can find somewhere else.”

“Good to see you’re still a fucking idiot. It’s -” Andrew hovered over the words. "- Fine.” Not like he fucking cared about anything in his shitty apartment. The place wasn’t designed for him to worry about cat hair or claw marks. “Come on.”

They took the lift. In the artificial light, Neil looked uncannily pale and the bruises unnaturally dark. Andrew had to restrain himself from taking hold of Neil’s chin and examining them more closely. Instead, the two of them stood on opposite sides of what felt like the longest elevator ride ever, swapping furtive looks and micro-expressions that they’d fallen out of the habit of reading.

Then the doors were dinging open and Neil followed him down the private corridor to his apartment and he was unlocking the door, holding it open so Neil could bustle in with the cat. There was no space for either of them to move except up against each other as Neil passed and Andrew’s heart stuttered. It was the warmth of Neil’s skin. The slight scent of musk and soap. They’d been apart for seven years, but Andrew remembered every detail of every time they’d ever been close enough to touch like this. He remembered this vivid, ferocious survivor whose stubborn desire to live constantly unbalanced and enflamed him. For the first time in years Andrew could feel that spark under his skin, the pulse beneath his wrists saying: _you live, you live, you live_. It came with such relief that his stomach pitted out like someone had opened a trap down to the abyss and he could _breathe_ and he was _present_ and _this was the impossibility of Neil Josten._

But then Neil stepped away.

And Andrew’s strings snapped back into place. 

The fire flared and he felt that bristle-sharp rage scouring his insides once more.

The door slipped from his fingers, slamming closed. Neil, who had bent to let the cat out, jerked upright.

They stood staring at each other, almost toe to toe.

“I’ll take that explanation now,” said Andrew.

Neil’s mouth quirked in a smile. “At least this time you chose somewhere warm.”

Andrew’s hands shook. He turned from Neil towards the kitchen, nearly tripping over the cat cage and receiving a long, grumpy hiss as he passed. Scowling, he didn’t check that Neil was following but he poured two tumblers of whiskey and shoved one down the counter for his guest.

Neil picked it up without complaining but didn’t drink even as Andrew downed his and automatically refilled before heading towards the sofas. He threw himself down and swirled the glass, watching as Neil hesitated, his attention catching on the view through the windows. His expression filled with awe and then confusion.

“You hate heights.”

“We’re not discussing me right now.”

Neil’s eyes flickered over to Andrew and something shifted in his stance, his hip dropped, his chin cocked. It was like watching a snake shed its skin and when Neil stepped forward, Andrew knew he was looking at _Bram_.

“We could be though,” said the stranger in Neil’s skin. “Or we could do something else entirely.”

“Neil…”

Andrew’s tone was meant to hold a warning, but it failed between his teeth. The problem was he couldn’t help appreciating what stood before him.

Neil had always been lithe, his runner’s build complimented by narrow hips and slim shoulders. But he’d always been tucked away too, wearing clothes that were ill-fitting and drab. Clothes designed to disguise and hide and blur into obscurity – as if that was ever a possibility. Now his legs were on full display, muscles clearly visible through the tight skinny jeans. His jacket was thin and dark, skimming his waist and with each step towards Andrew there was a flash of skin where his too-short t-shirt rode up his abs.

_Fuck, he was gorgeous._

“Like what you see?” Neil asked, a sly grin creeping across his lips. But it didn’t reach his eyes. There was something calculating and dead about his expression that reminded Andrew of Ellis. No matter the curl of interest in his stomach, he couldn’t let Neil come any closer.

Andrew clenched his fists, loosened them. “No.”

The reaction was instant. “Oh – what? Fuck – I’m sorry – I --”

Neil’s face cracked. Every step he’d prowled forward vanished as he retreated back towards the kitchen.

“Stop,” Andrew said, and Neil did, still looking stricken. “Sit and talk to me, idiot. You called for a reason.”

“Because I knew you’d come,” Neil said. He went to scrub his face only to wince as his fingers caught on bruises. “I shouldn’t have. I can go.”

Andrew rose before Neil could panic his way into running, reaching instinctively for Neil’s wrist. That feeling of disbelief and wonder washed through him again. _He’s really here_ , he thought. _He can’t leave._ He held tight even as Neil tried to tug away.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Andrew said. “You’re here. Your cat is here. It’s the middle of the fucking night and it’s snowing and you’re wearing _that_. Don’t you have a fucking coat?”

He paused. They were so close. And then Andrew felt Neil’s wrist twist in his grasp, felt as slim fingers wrapped around his own like a lifeline. His gaze flickered down and then up again, he snagged on the icy blue of those eyes. They watched him the same way a non-believer watched a miracle – a little scared, a little in awe, most definitely questioning his sanity.

“Whatever you want to do tomorrow, fine. You’re not a prisoner and I won’t stop you from going back to whatever trouble you’re in,” Andrew continued. “Tonight, you stay. Tonight, you talk to me. You know you’ve got more spine than this, that’s why you called me. So stay.”

A shiver ran along their arms and Andrew couldn’t tell if it started with him or Neil. Slowly, he tugged them both back round to the sofa, pushed Neil down but didn’t let go as he perched as well.

“ _PRRRRWL.”_

A blur of pale ginger fur whipped between them and Andrew found himself with a lap full of a very fluffy Moggle.

He jerked away from Neil as the cat crowded into his space. “It’s the size of a fucking dog.”

Neil looked as surprised as Andrew felt. Then he smiled. It wasn’t cautious or hesitant but bloomed quietly into something that rippled behind Andrew’s ribs. “She is a bit of a dog. She can do sit and fetch too.”

Andrew stared at him then back at the cat. He lifted his palm and held it out.

“Okay not _that_ much of a dog.” Neil laughed, but Andrew was too fixed on the animal now rubbing its head against his hand. She was so soft. “I’m surprised actually, she’s not normally that interested in strangers.”

“I bet you say that to everyone.”

Andrew slid his fingers into the long, thick fur and began slowly petting the creature until it sunk down onto his lap, purring and no longer blurring the space between him and his runaway. Attention hooked on the cat, Neil’s expression was fond and perhaps a little surprised. He’d always been too easy to read for someone with so many secrets, but Andrew was glad that whatever happened after Baltimore hadn’t taken that away from him.

“I don’t know where to start. Not everything is simple.”

“How about with what happened to your face.”

Neil gave a minute nod. He was worrying his lower lip, ignoring the split and swell. There was no way it wasn’t going to bleed. Sure enough, red pooled along the line of Neil’s mouth and his tongue flicked out, smearing it clean whilst flashing pink teeth.

“I went with the wrong person,” Neil said. His words were slow and considered. “I thought… I don’t know what I thought. But they weren’t who I expected. I just… my boss…”

 _Pimp_ , Andrew’s brain supplied. _Neil had a fucking pimp._

“They told me to lay low. No one wants me around looking like this. But I just… I was so sure. And I was convinced he was just another the guy. He didn’t… But he wasn’t…. He was… I think... The things he said…”

None of Neil’s sentences were complete. They broke off and restarted halfway through, making a mishmash of sense and confusion. Andrew suspected Neil didn’t know exactly what happened or where it went wrong.

“What did he say?”

“Most of it was the usual bullshit at first, you know.”

Not exactly, but Andrew could guess. He knew the things men liked to say to people who couldn’t say no, or whose consent didn’t factor into the conversation.

“He was aggressive but no weirder than most – another easy one, I figured. Lots of guilt. Self-hate. Predictable.”

“Only he wasn’t.”

“No.” Neil reached out to Moggle, drew a line down the cat’s back that made her ripple like a wave. Andrew stared openly. Neil’s jaw was clenched. He was study in controlled anger. Andrew’d hazard a guess that most of that anger was directed at himself. “You asked me about that kid. The one that died a couple weeks back. Rumour between the boys is that he went with the Toothfairy more than once before he was killed. I have good instincts. It’s what makes me good at my job. And this guy…” 

“You think it was him.” 

“It doesn’t make sense though.”

Neil shook his head, dared to meet Andrew’s eye. The anger lingered but there was desperation too. Did Neil want reassurance? For Andrew to tell him that there was no chance whoever had taken a fist to his face was the serial killer that the New York police seemed so determined to ignore.

The moment passed. Neil averted his eyes, a gesture that Andrew remembered all too well.

Sipping at his whiskey, Andrew contemplated the figure in front of him. The way Neil had so confidently hijacked his car. The doubt when he’d revealed he’d brought the cat. The sudden transformation into Bram and back again. The look in his too blue eyes as he turned over events in his head – assessing and analytical and frustrated – like he was trying to solve a mystery, not deconstruct an assault. The thing was Neil’s pieces had never added up, not until weeks after the riot when Kevin finally spilled the truth – and even then, there had been details missing, whole sections of the puzzle that Andrew couldn’t complete.

So much about Neil was different. So much of him was the same. Yet Andrew had that feeling again now. That sense that he was missing something fundamental.

 _What aren’t you saying?_ he wondered. _Your father is dead. His people are in prison. You helped put them away and yet here we are. What’s even left for you to fear?_

A giant yawn from Neil broke the quiet, pain clearly flaring as he did so. “I know I owe you more than this,” he said from behind one hand. “But any chance of picking up when the sun’s up?”

Andrew hummed, downed his whiskey and was about to stand when he remembered the cat. He frowned. “What do I do with her?”

“She’s ok, you can just push her off.”

Andrew’s forehead creased. Moggle was warm and sleepy and very large. Andrew was sure she would never forgive him if he moved her. “No, I don’t think I can.”

“Uh huh,” Neil said, mouth ghosting a smile. “Let me take her then.”

He leant over into Andrew’s space, his hands carefully not touching even as he tugged the cat upwards and into his chest. As her weight lifted, Andrew shivered. He tried not to analyse it.

“Come on,” he said. “You two can take the spare room.”

***

Sleep didn’t come easily that night. Every time he closed his eyes, Andrew found his eyelids painted with images of Neil: handsome from two angles, beautiful from three, and deadly from everywhere else. With every blink, past and present overlayed each other, the Neil of washed-soft orange hoodies standing in the shadow of the man now tucked away in his spare room. 

Tipping his head to the side, watching the snow as it fell through the darkness outside, Andrew caught sight of his own murky reflection in the glass. _What did Neil see, looking at him now? What was he feeling? Was he awake too, brain full of questions, hands tracing the cat’s ears, tossing and turning on the other side of the corridor?_

Sunrise was approaching, he could feel it coming, feel the light curving around the earth. Soon it would rise like a tide through the skyscrapers, glaring off glass and denying any more chance of rest. Andrew needed sleep. But his muscles refused to unclench; his mind wouldn’t unwind. The fortress he’d built since Palmetto were trembling, and he didn’t know how far to open the gates.

The snow kept falling outside – on and on – endless and menacing in its desire to bury New York. On nights like this he imagined it could suffocate them all.

***

Andrew Minyard work with a start, drenched in sweat and scrabbling for his knives. He snatched at short, sharp breaths, trying to drag them deep into his lungs. He didn’t know when he’d fallen asleep, but he knew why he’d woken up.

There was someone in his apartment, bumps and rustles giving them away.

His heart pumped a deafening beat. His brain felt smothered. That didn’t stop him from lurching out of bed and into the hallway, rounding towards the noise on half-awake legs. His balance shook. His stomach coiled. He pushed into the study – barely used – and frowned. There was no one here.

And then he felt a warm push against his ankles. Gasping, he jumped back. “Fuck!”

The night came crashing back into him – the snow, the launderette, the old lady with her gun, _Neil_ and _his fucking cat._

Cursing again, Andrew’s arms dropped to his sides, his breathing still ragged. He wasn’t used to having another living creature here with him, let alone a cat the size of a spaniel that seemed determined to explore every inch of the apartment. There were signs of her movements everywhere – papers on the floor, a chair bumped out of place, hair on the rug like she’d rolled around scratching an itch.

The commotion must have drawn Neil’s notice. He poked his head into the room where Andrew was still trembling and watching the cat with narrow eyes.

“Ah shit, Andrew. Sorry, I went to the bathroom and she must have decided to explore. Didn’t mean for her to wake you. I can take her back to my room.”

Andrew shook his head.

Neil understood his silence immediately, taking a step away so he was out of arm’s reach. A lick of hate rolled around in Andrew’s gut – _how dare Neil understand him so easily after so long_ – but he couldn’t hold onto the emotion. He was still trying to ground himself. Still trying to take back his own control.

Andrew breathed in, out. He couldn’t hide that he’d woken up ready to attack and maim – just as he had back then when his dreams dragged him down into treacherous places filled with ruinous hands. Fortunately, neither the cat nor Neil seemed overly interested in Andrew or his early morning break down.

Moggle had grown bored of his ankles and gone to leap onto the desk, finding a perch on a pile of books in the sunshine. _A tiny lioness,_ Andrew mused. _What a ridiculous beast._

“Oh,” Neil’s voice was barely a breath. “Andrew…”

Andrew saw that the other man’s attention had travelled the room only to snag on the walls. He seemed transfixed by a set of postcards clumsily shoved into a series of frames. The only sign of life in the apartment and Andrew did his best to ignore them.

“You _kept_ them,” Neil said in a tone like wonder.

Andrew watched, keeping that careful distance that felt like miles and yet not enough. He tried to find words. When they came, they were rough and slow. “They were from you.”

“When did you figure it out?”

Andrew shrugged. He hadn’t worked it out. Not really. It was just hope – the last tendrils of that he’d allowed himself.

Neil leant forward, hand lifting to touch one of the frames. Inside sat a postcard from Provence, showing a lavender field with a grey kitten in the corner saying _Bon Appetit_ in large florid letters. The lives Andrew had imagined for Neil were hidden in these postcards. He’d pictured him travelling the world, learning how to stop running one country at a time, maybe one day coming home.

 **“** I wanted this for you,” he said. “Sometimes I imagined following them.”

Neil’s face was bruised. His lip was cut. His eyes captured Andrew’s and the pain there was violent. “Maybe in an alternate universe.”

“I should take them down.” Andrew said, heat bristling below his skin as he roamed over each frame: Sanury sur Mer, Bonefacio, Venice, Rome, Bruge, Oxford, Bratislava, Spit, Dubrovnik…

“What? Why?”

“I’ve never been one to hold onto lies.”

 _Except one,_ his brain taunted. _Just the one standing a metre away from you._

But Neil couldn’t hear inside his head. His face shuttered. “Fuck you,” he said. “I wasn’t fucking lying.”

“Then you are now,” Andrew said. “I went over what you said last night and things don’t add up, _Bram_. I’m getting a distinct taste of déjà vu, in fact. Are you?”

“ _I’m not lying_ ,” Neil hissed. “For fuck sakes, I didn’t call you, tell you everything I did last night, just to be called a fucking liar. I’m many fucking things these days, Andrew, but that’s not one of them.”

The bruises on Neil’s face were worse this morning, black and blue and yellow where they’d settled into themselves. With the sleep shirt hanging the way it was, Andrew could see more of them around Neil’s throat – a clear set of handprints, thumbs either side of his larynx. But god, Andrew was so angry. All those years, all these cards, the vaguest hope that _Neil was ok_ somewhere, even if it wasn’t here. That, somehow, he’d made it out and was busy living rather than surviving. It was all that had stopped Andrew from taking the elevator to the top and throwing himself to the bottom.

“You expect me to believe that you’re a changed man? You’re the one who spilled his story to me in the back of a bus, told me to let him go, told me he’d fight his own battles, told me he’d _stay_ , only to run away hours later. You _lied_ and then you _left_.”

“I didn’t leave. I was bloody kidnapped. Are you kidding me right now?”

“ _Thank you. You were amazing,”_ Andrew sneered, feeling victorious when Neil flinched. “You knew what was coming. You fucking _knew_ and you still asked me to stand down.” 

“As if you didn’t know something was wrong.” Neil was turning red now, his tongue weaponizing behind his teeth. “You came to me after the game. You knew something was up and you didn’t even try to work it out.”

Andrew scoffed. “What was I meant to work out? That you were about to stage a riot with your dad’s pals and nearly get all of us killed? That you were giving up, giving in? What was I supposed to take from that ridiculous display of gratitude?”

“Maybe you were just meant to know that I _meant_ it.” Neil’s voice cracked. “That I meant thank you for everything – for the trust and the honesty, the keys, _you_. You gave me the first place I ever called home. You gave me…” He cut himself off, sucked in a breath that hurt to listen to as it rattled in his chest. “Where even were you that day?”

Andrew waited for clarification that he didn’t even need. He knew exactly what Neil was talking about. The day. The hour. The minute.

“When I was… when… after the Binghamton match, where were you?”

For a moment, the hustler was gone, the survivor forgotten. His eyes were still burning, still angry, but it rang false. Neil was a lost young man, cracking himself open, bearing his throat.

“I was in surgery,” Andrew said, lifting a finger he tapped at his temple. During the riot, he’d taken an elbow to his face – not noticing the damage between adrenalin and Neil’s disappearing act until it was almost too late. “Orbital blowout fracture. They had to repair my eye.”

The immediate aftermath of the riot was a blur but he remembered the pain, the double-vision. He remembered running on fury, throwing Kevin against the bus right before he’d passed out. He’d woken up in hospital with Abby and Renee at his side. For days, he’d sat in darkness, bandages around his face as his eyes recovered. For weeks, he’d been in relentless agony, refusing any kind of painkillers that could muddle his thoughts. His mind had raced.

“No one told me they’d found you until days later. And when they did…” Andrew closed his eyes, remembering the hate and the disappointment and the rage. _If only he’d been there. If only he’d ducked._ His next words were soft and fierce. “I would never have let you walk out that door. All you had to do was stay.”

When he opened his eyes, Neil’s expression was a wound – raw and open. They were closer now, inches apart and yet with too many miles between them. So much time had been lost. There was no telling where they might be if not for that riot and everything that came after. They might have gone pro together. Might have played for the same team. Faked a rivalry. Owned cats.

Andrew glanced at Moggle. _Maybe two cats._

His shoulders sagged. He shook his head. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll make us coffee.”


	7. you were my town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil unfolded himself from the sofa and offered Andrew a hand, like the idiot he was. And Andrew accepted it, like the utter disaster that he was. They stood toe to toe, too close and too warm, eyes dipping over noses and lips. Neither closed the gap.
> 
> That was the thing between them, lurking behind the easy passing of time and conversation, the shared cigarettes and secrets. Andrew let his gaze drag on the cattish curve of Neil’s mouth, the sharp sweep of his jaw. He stepped away. He could hear his heart in his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW // discussions of heavy past drug use, drug overdose and sex work.

_VII_

_you were my town_

***

Ellis had been fifteen once. He’d passed notes in class, rushed home after school to shoot hoops with his dad. He’d had a good relationship with his mom, enjoyed dancing around his room with his best friend Grace, giggling about boys they found cute. Ellis could barely remember that boy now – that stupid, naïve boy who’d thought he was a man. Now all he really knew was the slippery slope he’d tumbled down, the chasm that’d opened up beneath his feet and the darkness that swallowed him whole.

It was another dark night. Another empty one. There were no headlights coming. No traffic. No business. Just the snow and himself and the A-line shapes of the other boys: Juice, Tolly, Craig. There was no sign of Bram again. Ellis shivered, thinking about the red-haired man with his scars and his feral smile. There was no one here to take care of them tonight.

If there were men out for the four of them tonight, they’d be the ones that set your skin crawling, the ones that raised the hair on your arms and made your heart stutter.

 _Predators_ , Bram called them. _The wolves you needed to run from, not towards._

He turned away from the road, looking up at the skyline. From here, if you squinted, you could see the tips of the commercial buildings of Wall Street, the closest thing to stars in New York. The click of a lighter had his eyes flicking left. Tolly was lighting a smoke, didn’t offer one to Ellis though. He wasn’t one to share, though he took, took, took whenever he could. Tolly was younger than Ellis, younger than Juice. He’d said he was sixteen, which probably meant fifteen. He barely looked twelve. The dead in his eyes was hard to look at.

Ellis had been fifteen once. Back then, he hadn’t known the taste of blood between his teeth or another man’s cum in his throat. Back then, he hadn’t known how much a body could ache or how cold bones could feel.

He’d started on speed because of Grace. Grace was one of those friends that made you feel bold and brave. But she’d been trying to lose weight and when she offered him one of the pills, he’d enjoyed the rush. It made him feel stronger and more beautiful and alive.

One day when she turned sixteen, she moved from pills to injectable amphetamines – her mom was a nurse, gave the bottles to her daughter because she used them too. Grace gave Ellis more than she gave herself, ten ccs instead of five. _Because you’re a boy_ , she’d said. And _oh_ there had been nothing else like it. The needle pierced his skin for the first time and there was nothing in the world he could care about any more except that rush, that feeling of his mind on fire and full of all the colours no one else could see.

In a matter of weeks, the two of them went from good kids with good grades and good families to two addicts locked into their clandestine adventure. It had been fun _, extraordinary fun,_ having this secret that they shared, this power that no one else had. It had been glorious and they had shone so bright. For a moment, everyone wanted to know them. Boys fancied Grace as her bones began to show. Ellis got his first blow job from an upperclassman who pinned him in the locker rooms between classes and told him he was _so fucking hot_. Him, a boy who’d been laughed at for being a bit round and a bit nerdy just months before.

Ellis had been fifteen and then sixteen. His weight was dropping, his grades were tanking, his friendship was Grace was blazing through him. His dad played basketball on the drive on his own now because that shit was for losers, and his mom tried to ground him but Ellis only laughed. Laughed and laughed. _You think I give a flying fuck about your rules? You’re a housewife mom, you’re pathetic, you’re nothing, you wasted your life, you’re so fucking stupid._

Grace started dating a guy from out of school. He said he was thirty, but he was greasy and old around the eyes. Grace fell for him. Fell so hard and fast that Ellis knew there was a needle involved there too. When her parents found out though, she chose the boyfriend over her family.

No matter that she’d once dreamt of college and rush week and bake sales and all the rest.

No matter that Ellis had still fostered a dream that they’d study at the same school, stay best of friends, burning brighter than the rest, who’d one day laugh at their wayward youth over coffee, who’d do dinner dates with their husbands, that maybe he’d even be godfather to her kids…

None of that mattered.

A month shy of her seventeenth birthday, Grace was dead. Overdosed. Pumped full of meth, lips scabbed and cracked, her hair unwashed.

And a week later, Ellis was outed: addict, homo, murderer. They said he was to blame for the drugs, for Grace, for everything. It wasn’t true and he’d said so. It was her fault. She was the one who sourced the drugs. She was the one who fucked it.

He’d been sixteen and an addict and queer and his best friend was dead. No one at school would talk to him. He didn’t have a dealer. Grace’s mom refused to speak to him. His family begged him to tell the truth. He could have taken it as a sign, taken the chance to get clean.

Instead, he’d stolen everything he could from his parents, packed a bag and headed to New York.

He’d picked up from some crack head, done his first proper speed ball in the back of a gas station, ended up so high his teeth had chattered for days. It had felt so good. It had felt so good until it was meth and heroin he wanted more than speed. It had felt so good until everything that was Ellis was reduced to the spoon, the flame, the tourniquet. Until he was standing out on a street corner, selling sex for money, and whatever he’d burnt with all those years ago was barely the crackle of an ember.

No one called him beautiful anymore. Nothing about this was extraordinary. He wanted another fix.

Headlights blinded him for a second, too bright in the dark. A black sports car crawled down the street, stopping to rumble in front of him. The car was familiar. Ellis’ stomach clenched. He lifted his head, met Tolly’s eyes and gave the smallest of nods. Setting his smile in place, he sauntered to the car, slid into the passenger seat, and closed the door on the dark and the night and the snow.

***

Perhaps it should have been awkward: the silence around them as the coffee brewed and their argument sank into the apartment walls.

But it wasn’t.

Their edges still fit, that was the thing about this quiet. Despite their outbursts and the lingering anger in their shadows, Andrew felt the rub of Neil’s presence against his own and it didn’t hurt. It didn’t cut. It didn’t leave his skin itching and wrong. This was the quiet of rooftops and long drives, the quiet of wary understanding and unflinching acceptance. 

Neil leant against the counter, all limbs and lines and contrasts. His hair was bright against the navy cupboards and stark lights. His face was contemplative, brow slightly furrowed in that way that made Andrew want to reach out and smooth the lines away like a dirty mark. Instead, he turned his attention to the low burble of the coffee maker and the rich, dark smells wafting from it.

He fixed Neil’s first, passed it over. “Black as a raven,” he said.

“Thanks,” Neil replied, smile ghosting over his lips. It was the phrase from their texts, and it softened a few more of Neil’s edges.

When Andrew’s was prepared – filled with sugar and cream – they slid to the living room and curled at opposite ends of the same sofa, careful inches between their feet.

Neither was ready to talk.

That was ok too.

There had been days like this at Palmetto, between practices and matches and stolen kisses. Hours when they were done with bickering, with snarking, with poking and prodding at each other’s boundaries. Dozens of moments across those final months, where they sank into silence, able to retreat, to find somewhere – someone – where they could be still. It was a feeling Andrew had never found again. It was one he didn’t know what to do with now.

The morning drifted. The snow outside shone in the bright winter light. The sky was clearest, coldest blue. _The colour of his eyes_. Time didn’t press inwards, it just was. He remembered staring out over Palmetto, over the trees and rooves of the PSU campus, Neil at his side. Back then he’d felt like this was everything: this town, their town, a place that - if they could just escape their pasts – could become their futures. Could become something he’d never truly expected to have, but could just about accept.

At some point, the cat joined them, curling around Andrew’s feet, tail draping over Neil’s toes. At some point, he realised Neil had fallen asleep and he gentled the coffee mug away from his loose fingers to place on the side table. It was still half full. He didn’t so much as stir.

Andrew frowned at Neil’s sleeping form, turning away after a minute. He couldn’t look at Neil too hard without his chest threatening to split open. He breathed in; knew Neil was lying to him – omitting the truth or avoiding it. He breathed out; recognised that he didn’t want Neil to disappear again, that he would do almost anything to prevent his leaving without promise of return.

The ache behind his ribs began to ease. His attention flickered back to the former striker. Like his he could take in the circular scars on the back of Neil’s hands, the pale white lines between them like someone had played a violent game of tick tack toe on his skin. He could see the fine bones, the strong wrists, the curve of Neil’s throat that would never not be enticing. But the bruises there were cruel.

_Were the hands that left those marks really those of a serial killer?_

It was the detail that just didn’t fit. How Neil could have ended up with the wrong man, down the wrong alley. How Neil’s instincts hadn’t caught the deceit, hadn’t kicked in – his were as finely tuned as Andrew’s when it came to sensing the evils of this world. Plus, Neil wasn’t like Ellis. He wasn’t an addict. His hands didn’t shake. His eyes weren’t glazed. Nothing in Neil’s manner of texting or talking belied desperation. Even last night when Neil stumbled over his words, trying to make sense of the assault, his demeanour had been off. More surprised than shocked.

 _Not that there’s a right way to process trauma_ , his inner voice chastised. But there was everything else as well - all the other things that didn’t add up.

On the one hand, there was Neil’s exhausted voice on the phone; on the other, there was the confident car thief who taunted him from the Maserati. There was the uncertain rabbit who followed Andrew up to this apartment, carrying a disgruntled cat; then there was that shift, like Neil had stepped into a second skin, becoming Bram with the half-lidded eyes and the smile like sin. There was the Neil of this morning: angry and disappointed, demanding and wary. There was the Neil of now, comfortable enough to fall sleep in Andrew’s presence.

Nothing added up at all. _But he’s here. There’s that._

Neil’s lashes were long against his cheeks, his brows soft. He still had those freckles, scattered in constellations over his nose. His breathing was deep and sound. His presence was warm. Moggle rose, stretched, and curled more fully over her human’s toes. Andrew noticed for the first time that they were bare and that like everywhere else on Neil’s body, the soles were littered by scars. There was the rush of rage along his bones as he released that someone, sometime, must have tried to make sure Neil couldn’t run. Whoever did it had better be dead.

***

The rest of the day passed in that same familiar quiet, punctuated by the same familiar bickering. Neil needled and Andrew rolled his eyes and Moggle slid between them both with eyes that were uncannily intelligent and definitely amused.

Andrew had introduced Neil to the gym – and hadn’t the reaction to that been predictable – seeing those bright blue eyes light up when they landed on the treadmill. Equally predictable had been his own reaction to seeing Neil mid-work out, all flushed skin, sweat licking down those beautiful angles, his smile a feral thing whenever he glanced at Andrew. For his own part, Andrew had lifted his eyes to the sky for the umpteenth time; Neil hadn’t fallen for his disaffection one little bit. That grin had been far too knowing.

Because there was _that_ still. The frisson of _something_ between them. Andrew was almost sure that Neil felt it too.

It was there when they ordered takeout and Neil shovelled pasta into his face like a starving man.

It was there when Andrew threw an oversized hoodie at Neil after spotting him shivering.

It was there when, on the third evening curled on the sofa, Neil asked, “Do you really not talk to any of them?” 

And it lingered when Andrew raised an eyebrow, saying, “Kevin doesn’t count?”

“You know he doesn’t.”

“Renee writes letters. Signed ones.” They were always _‘you’d like it here’, ‘hope you’re well’, ‘did you know this or that about that or this person’,_ usually referring to someone he no longer spoke to or cared to hear about _. “_ Bee buzzed off, but still sends a note Christmas.” _Correction_ : He’d driven her off. Stopped attending therapy. Stopped answering her calls. Her mistake had been her insistence on talking about Neil; he couldn’t help but wonder what she’d say now.

“What about Coach? You said you see him for drinks?”

“And he calls after the tougher games.” _After every game. Without fail._

“He does?” Neil sounded wistful. “Did Kevin ever tell him?”

“Tell him what?”

Neil sighed and rubbed his face. “Kevin is Coach’s son. And I guess you not knowing that kinda tells me everything.”

Andrew blinked. “His son.” He was almost surprised that his opinion of America’s second starting striker could reach any lower. But he thought of Wymack’s weathered face, the wrinkles that grew deeper with time… “He really is a coward.”

“He’s owned by the Moriyama’s. Perhaps not as literally as Jean but still owned,” Neil said. “Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s wrong for never saying anything. Coach… I think he’d want to know. But Kevin’s broken just like the other Foxes and he’ll have had his reasons.”

Andrew snorted. “You give him too much credit.”

“He told me once that he was scared of what Tetsuji would do if Coach got in the way. I can only imagine after Jean’s suicide that whatever was going on in Kevin’s head got worse."

It had. Andrew remembered the aftermath clearly – Kevin’s endless drinking that summer, the tiny funeral where there were more former Foxes than Ravens, the way Renee had tried to speak to Kevin only to be snarled at and shoved away. Jean Moreau had allegedly killed himself three days after graduating, having just been signed to the same pro team as Riko. Kevin had been so sure it wasn’t true though, that Riko had somehow got away with murder. Andrew wasn’t sure. He’d only seen the Raven backliner at matches after Renee’s foiled plan to rescue him, barely giving him thought except as the man who stood by whilst Neil was tortured at Evermore. But Neil was right, things had darkened after Jean’s death. If it hadn’t been for Thea, Andrew wasn’t sure even he would have been able to protect Kevin – not when the enemy was so clearly himself.

“He’s scared of everything these days. It’s pathetic,” he said instead of agreeing.

“Maybe he has reason to be.”

And there it was again, that funny shiver all along Andrew’s skin. It was the feeling of a secret, a lie by omission, a puzzle looking to be solved. He rolled his shoulders back and noted how Neil’s eyes drifted down to his pecs and collarbone. “Change the topic,” Andrew said. “Tell me about the trial.”

“Hm.” Neil stroked a single finger down Moggle’s back, causing the cat to ripple and Andrew’s skin to prick like that of a pond. “It was lonely. I wasn’t allowed to do anything or see anyone. I was essentially under arrest for two years whilst we tracked down survivors from the Butcher’s ring and prosecuted them – there was a little of everything, goons, corrupt police, you name it. And then there's the Moriyamas.” He sighed and sat back. “I didn’t have enough to bring them down. There was Evermore but they’re good at keeping Tetsuji’s little hobby away from the main family. And Ichirou’s smarter than his father. He made a deal instead and the whole case just…” He made an exploding gesture with his hand. “ _Poof_. I was released. And that was it.”

There was a very good chance that that was not _it_ at all but there was a twist to Neil’s mouth and a furrow in his brows and Andrew decided to say instead, “I’m surprised you didn’t run.”

“Ha. I did. A few times. Never got very far.”

“But I’m _more_ surprised to hear you call exy a little hobby.” 

This time Neil really did laugh, a small huff that turned into a giggle and when their eyes met, his were fond. “Defending stickball now?”

“I’ll have you know it’s an Olympic sport,” Andrew said in a close approximation to Kevin’s voice.

“Ah yes, and you’re an Olympian.”

“A medallist.”

“Bronze,” Neil said with a smirk. “I remember the photos of Riko’s face after the semi-final. He couldn’t even pretend for the cameras. To be fair though, if you wanted to win, they should have played you for more than a quarter. You were unstoppable the game before.”

“One guess on whose strategy that was.”

“Of course, it was. He looked like ready to kill someone.”

“If he could get away with it, I’m sure he would. Unfortunately for him, injuring your national-level teammates doesn’t fly. Killing them even less so.”

“Makes you wonder where he gets his outlet now – he can’t injure Kevin, Jean’s dead, from what you’re saying he can’t take it out on you lot.”

Andrew shrugged. “I try my best to never think too hard about Riko Moriyama.” He nodded at Neil’s plate. It was almost licked clean. “Want anything else?”

Neil leant back, rolling his shoulders and neck. “Nah, but I’d love a tea. Want a hot chocolate?”

Andrew was going to nod but paused. Neil had made him an absolutely decadent mug the night before but had used half the tub, leaving barely a scrape of drinking chocolate in the bottom when he went to mocha his coffee this morning. “You used it all yesterday.”

“You don’t have more?"

“I have a sweet tooth, but I don’t usually use 150 grams in one go.”

“You didn’t complain last night.”

“I’m not complaining now, except that there’s none left, and we need to go out to get more.”

“Go out? Together?”

“Don’t look so scandalised. It’s the supermarket not a date.”

Neil had the gall to pout. “Aw you’re dashing my dreams.”

“Fairly certain your dreams involve long-distance running and pre-chopped fruit.”

“And cats.”

“Cats,” Andrew said. “Sure. Of course. Cats.”

Neil unfolded himself from the sofa and offered Andrew a hand, like the idiot he was. And Andrew accepted it, like the utter disaster that he was. They stood toe to toe, too close and too warm, eyes dipping over noses and lips. Neither closed the gap.

 _That_ was the thing between them, lurking behind the easy passing of time and conversation, the shared cigarettes and secrets.Andrew let his gaze drag on the cattish curve of Neil’s mouth, the sharp sweep of his jaw. He stepped away. He could hear his heart in his ears.

Neil made a noise. It could have been a sigh, but Andrew didn’t look up, moving away to find shoes and a coat. He didn’t know what would be worse – to see Bram staring back at him, to find Neil looking at him like his first and only answer, or – worst of all – to discover that this feeling was all in his own head, one-sided, unreciprocated, a pipe dream that he’d lost nearly a decade before.

“Andrew?” Neil said.

Grunting, Andrew bent to tie the laces on his boots.

“Did Renee give you this?”

Neil had made his way to the hall closet and rummaged to dig out a dark winter jacket that hung ridiculously on his narrow shoulders and a rainbow beanie with a bright pink pom-pom.

Andrew’s stomach twisted. “Nicky,” he said. “Our last year at Palmetto.” He didn’t even know why he’d kept it. The thing was hideous; he’d long hoped it was lost in his various moves around the country (or maybe he hadn’t).

“It’s so awful,” said Neil. “I love it.” And he scrunched it onto his head, leaving a tangle of auburn curls sticking out at odd angles around his face.

“You don’t expect me to be seen in public with you wearing that.”

“You’re the one who wants to go out in the dark and the snow for _hot chocolate.”_

“It stopped snowing three days ago.”

“It’s still bloody Baltic out there.”

“Aren’t you trying to keep a low profile?”

Neil deflated. The hat came off. Andrew wished he hadn’t said anything. “Yeah…” His fingers smoothed over the bobble. “Guess I’d better leave it.”

***

It was a chilly evening, the sky not quite dark. The lengthening days were finally noticeable. Snow still covered the ground, too thick to melt away in the weak February sun. Yet, if Andrew squinted, it was possible to spot where the grass verge was beginning to break through, tiny scraps of green emerging between melting ice. It would be spring soon.

The traffic was its usual nightmare – all noise and furious drivers. New York’s roads groaned and rumbled in its clumsy, democratic way – full of stops and starts and every time it looked like things were moving, up popped a gerrymander and the streets came to a rage-fuelled halt. For once, Andrew was glad to not be in the Maserati, to be walking with Neil in this liminal city where no one belonged and no one knew their neighbours and everyone was in some way an exile.

They were three blocks from the apartment, about halfway to the grocery store, when Neil became twitchy. He kept checking over his shoulder, he kept his chin tucked to his chest, hands rotating from fluttering at his sides to being stuffed into pockets to running through his hair and repeat. He wasn’t at ease. Andrew began to wonder if that odd expression from when he’d suggested they leave the apartment was more fear than surprise. He supposed that this was ostensibly the first time Neil had left the building since Andrew picked him up from the laundromat and therefore likely the first time he’d been anywhere public since being attacked. Still, this agitation would be all too obvious when they got to Whole Foods.

When Neil’s fingers tangled in his hair again, Andrew grabbed his wrist and pulled it down.

“Stop it,” he said, as if it was that easy.

The two words hung on the cold air, suspended in white mist for just a moment. He wondered if Neil heard what was caught behind his teeth: _You’re safe_. _I’m here._ Neil stilled, his mouth pursing shut and his eyes narrowing on the point where their skin touched. Andrew squeezed once and let go. He couldn’t hold on.

“I’m fine,” said Neil, unbelievable even before he ruined any chance of nonchalance by looking over his shoulder again, scanning the empty street, the cars, the sidewalk on the other side. “Just… got a weird vibe.”

Andrew didn’t say anything, other the itch of eyes from bored drivers, there was nothing on his radar to worry about.

Neil made a face. “Probably all in my head.”

“We can go back.”

“But you need hot chocolate.”

 _Idiot_ , Andrew thought. He pushed back his sleeves, revealing his armbands. The offer was there: _take one_ _if you need it_. 

Neil didn’t flinch. He swallowed, looked like he might respond but shook his head. “It’s fine. Bet it’s nothing.”

If they walked the rest of the journey a little more quickly, neither of them mentioned it. Neil did stop fidgeting though. When they entered the bright, overly aesthetic light of the store, they set about their search for hot chocolate and Neil even smiled. It wasn’t convincing, a draft could have blown it away. Andrew suspected that Neil would be checking over his shoulder still if not for being called out.

It was almost domestic. Andrew carried the basket and Neil picked the food, loading them up with tea and cookies and crisps and… o _h hell no._

“I’m not paying for rabbit food,” Andrew said, blinking at the assortment of dried fruit and nut bars that had just landed in the basket.

“You don’t have to,” said Neil. “This can be on me.”

Letting himself scowl, Andrew was tempted not to let the clear sophistry slide. This was another secret. But he couldn’t place what it was and he didn’t want to call Neil out only for him to weave another lie.

 _Plus, Neil always had resources,_ he told himself. _Of course, he can pay for basic groceries._

Although it begged the question about his lifestyle. And Whole Foods _was_ pretty fancy. Even Andrew didn’t come here on a normal day, letting the team nutritionists set up deliveries and using takeaways and corner shops to stock up on the junk and booze that he craved. This place was nice. Too nice for the likes of him.It was clean and bright; the assistants shiny and fresh in their green uniforms. The place had an aesthetic. An ambiance somewhere between pretentious and homespun. He kind of hated it – except for the ice cream selection, which reminded him of Sweeties with its wall of flavours. Every colour of the rainbow was accounted for in frozen form. He mentioned this to Neil, the truth slipping off his tongue. Neil touched his sleeve and tugged him towards the frozen section where he hovered his hand over different tubs before picking out the ones that Andrew wanted as easily as if they’d written out a list.

They wended their way through the aisles, grabbing and coffee creamer, cheese and ham and plush white bread.

 _For croques_ , according to Neil, _simple and delicious._

“Another thing you picked up abroad?”

“No.” Neil laughed. “From TV.”

As they headed towards check out, however, Andrew began to feel uneasy, disquieted.Hesitating, he glanced around, seeing nothing but two younger women murmuring over yoghurts. Fortunately, Neil didn’t notice his distraction. The heathen was too busy picking a non-dairy milk before they left.

It wasn’t the sense of being watched. It wasn’t a sense of threat. It was a cold and prickling sense of _off, bad, wrong_ with no clear indication of exactly what was amiss. Andrew took Neil’s elbow and guided them to the tills and then back into the twilight. He kept his eyes peeled, noting the moment where Neil registered his wariness.

They passed a police van as they went, blue lights flashing and two white faces taking note of them as they passed. Neil ducked his head, hiding behind his hair. Andrew kept his fingers tight on Neil’s forearm, moving to make sure he was the one walking closest to the cops. As they passed, one of the police gave them a clear once over, eyeing the dark coats and full bags before her eyes drifted away in disinterest. Not for the first time, he was glad that he wasn’t a celebrity like Kevin Day or even Matt Boyd. People knew his face, knew his name and the lies spun for him in magazines. They knew his history as a Fox, the details of his past from Aaron’s trial. But he wasn’t recognisable for the tattoo on his face or the swagger in his step. People imagined him bigger than he was, as if his uniform added ten inches. They’d never look at him in his dark jeans and black jacket as someone to pay attention to for more than a glancing moment. 

They kept moving, hustling down the street until they were back in a more residential side road, and Andrew felt that weirdness beginning to fade. When they reached his block though, he realised Neil was very much on edge again. As they entered through the back and rode the elevator up, he kept shifting, rising up and down on the balls of his feet like he wanted to run.

“Neil,” Andrew said. “What—”

“Don’t,” Neil said. There was a note of desperation in his voice. “I don’t want to run and if you ask, I will. I’ll go. I’ll have to.”

Andrew didn’t know what to make of that. He watched as Neil’s chest rose and fell, the flickering emotions over his face. He waited out the panic, the frustration, the calculating shadows that faded into pensiveness.

The bell to the elevator dinged and the two of them bundled into Andrew’s apartment with a rustle and clatter of bags and coats. Neil went straight to the kitchen, clanging and clattering as he started to prepare tea and hot chocolate with a determination he’d only ever seen before in Abby. The way she used to insist on giving the Foxes somewhere warm and stable, somewhere they could always hide.

 _Somethings never changed,_ Andrew thought. _Neil was always on the cusp of running._

_He was also always looking for reasons to stay._

The question was whether Andrew was ready to give them. Really ready. Because he couldn’t offer another deal, he couldn’t make a new promise. Not without pulling down the stonewalls he’d resurrected in the last few years. Not without rearranging the boundaries that had so carefully maintained his life since he woke up in hospital, blind and bewildered.

So Andrew said nothing. The moment passed.

He drank his hot chocolate and Neil drank his tea. The day played over in his head. He bid Neil goodnight a few hours later and watched as the other man, this not-quite-stranger, disappeared into the apartment for sleep. Tipping his head to the windows, Andrew noted the deep clouds lit up by city lights and sighed.

He felt for the hollows inside him, the cracks in his skin, the draught that beat through his ribs. When Neil was around, he could sense them widening, yawning towards the light - and he almost wanted to see what might happen if he prised those cracks wider, if he broke his walls apart and washed away the darkness to see what shadows still remained.

***

The next few days passed quietly - they worked out, they fussed over the cat, eyes kept catching on eyes, croques were made and eaten. They talked and talked, riding the highs and lows of conversation as they touched on the different aspects of their lives, learning what new boundaries existed within them both - what was broachable, what needed time, what hurt - but also what made the other laugh, what raised the corners of a smile, what made them soften and listen, leaning forward to hear more.

They didn’t leave the apartment together again. Andrew went out twice - once for milk and once to meet Bex. It was their freerunning session, the first in a long time and Neil pouted when he admitted that this was where he was going in sportswear so early in the morning.

“I can’t believe this is actually true,” Neil said. “You hate heights but now you live in this place and throw yourself off buildings.”

Andrew bent to tie his laces, tucking the loose ends away inside his Sauconys. Neil’s eyes watched his every move. Dressed in leggings and shorts, thermal under armour and a light shirt, he knew he looked good. His physique was more than on show, it was in high definition when he dressed like this - the blacks and greys far more forgiving than his exy kit ever was. Standing, he pulled a mask over his mouth and nose, and slid his hands into half fingered gloves.

“Won’t your hands freeze?”

“Bex is a purist,” Andrew said, as if that explained everything. And it did, kind of. She always said that your hands were for feeling, for making sure that what you gripped or leant on was safe. Covering them, even against the cold, reduced that ability. “Try not to die whilst I’m out.”

“No promises,” Neil said. “Try not to fall and break anything. The new season isn’t that far away.”

Andrew looked at Neil, thinking it ironic how far, far too late it was for him not to fall and break. He’d been falling for weeks. He knew just how hard he would hit in the end, just like when the earth froze like iron, cold and impenetrable as stone. Neil shifted on the balls of his feet, his hands fluttering like he wanted to reach out or gesture or something - but he stilled after a moment, mask slipping into place over whatever emotions had been rippling below the surface.

“Ask Bex to film some of it?” Neil asked.

“Absolutely not. You’ll have to come with me another time. Try it for yourself.”

Something wistful passed over Neil’s face. “Perhaps.”

It sounded too much like a _no_ that wanted to be a _yes_. Without thinking, Andrew took Neil’s hand and smoothed his thumbs over his knuckles. He could feel the knots and ridges of scars, the bird bones of Neil’s knuckles. His hands were bigger than Neil’s, wider, thicker fingered. He pressed Neil’s palm to his chest, splaying his own hand over the top. Neil’s breathing hitched.

Words were stuck behind his teeth. He wanted to tell Neil that a junkie like him would probably enjoy it. Tell him why it’s worth it - the sick lurch, the fear, the battle against gravity, the rush at the end. He wanted to explain that heights still set his heart pumping, that the fall had him measuring his life in microseconds, but that for each of those blissful, terrifying moments his head was clear, quiet, blank as a white canvas. All that existed was his body, his breath. None of the words would come though - they were too cliche, too insipid.

“You asked me once what I was doing on the roof,” he said, trying to work out a way to say what he needed, stuttering over what

Neil’s fingers were a brand even through the layers of his thermals; hand hot above his heart. “I remember. You were feeling.”

Eyes slipping down Neil’s throat, his attention lingered on where his hand covered Neil’s. “It’s still true.” _Free running was a reminder. A punishment. A release. Just like this apartment. Just like every ledge he’d stood on in the last seven years._

“Andrew,” said Neil, his name just a whisper, an almost question. 

Here it was, that thing between them, another kind of ledge and a feeling close to freefall. 

“I need to go,” Andrew replied, releasing Neil’s hand, unable to stand so near to what was no longer his. But Neil didn’t move, his palm lay warm where Andrew had placed it on his chest, fingers pressed into Andrew’s pectorals. Warm and light, yet oh so heavy.

This thing was so much, too much. It was Andrew who took a step away, feeling cold as space slid back between them. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah.” Neil watched him leave, standing in socked feet and an oversized jumper. He was a warm, soft thing in a place - a life - that had seen little of either.

 _An illusion_ , Andrew reminded himself. _Neil was as deadly as himself, perhaps more so. Softness wasn’t in their code._

Yet, in the elevator, it was impossible not to think about the way Neil said his name, the way his eyes seemed to become endless blue as they dilated, the way his fingers had twitched under his own, the press of his palm right over his heart. Andrew let himself wallow in the fresh memories until he was crossing the lobby.

 _Time to focus_.

Hitting the New York streets, Andrew began to jog. Bex would be putting him through his paces soon enough. They would meet and they would clamber higher and higher, taking on the rooftops of New York like they were steppingstones across a river, the roads far below just rapids. There would be fire escapes to climb, scaffolding to swing through. They would fling themselves across impossible distances, for a few seconds seeming to fly as they lifted between buildings. Andrew would tip and roll, he’d scrape over his elbows, his shoulders, his knees. Bex would clamber up a drainpipe and offer a hand down to drag him up as well. He’d use every angle of his body to scale vertical walls and defy gravity a thousand times before the day was done.

And when it was over, when Bex had run him ragged and it felt like the stitches holding him together were straining over muscles and bone, she would let him loose with a look that was her closest approximation to a smile. She would check him over for injury, work him through a warm down. She’d ask him questions that sat on the border of business and personal, never crossing the lines of their not-quite-friendship. She would be glad he wasn’t drinking as much. She’d no doubt be curious as to why, but be too familiar with his mercurial moods to ask what had changed. She would let him go whilst he was still riding the high of the fall.

Only then would he go back to the apartment - to Neil - where he’d feel a different swoop in his stomach, defy a different kind of gravity.

His feet beat a rhythm on the tarmac.

His heart felt steady in his chest.

Today he would fall, he would fly, and he would find his way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts, feels, hit me! I absolutely LIVE for your comments. Thank you so much for coming this far with this story.

**Author's Note:**

> Well here we go. Are you ready for some more angst and fluff and more angst? 
> 
> Thoughts, feels, hit me. I live for your opinions. 
> 
> xx


End file.
